


Feels Good, Doesn't It?

by Sapphy, SapphyWatchesYouSleep (Sapphy)



Series: Peuchen Stiles [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Although that's not an excuse since I'm nocturnal, Blood Drinking, Derek is definately edible, Genderfuck, I wrote this in the middle of the night, Logically shapeshifters should be able to change their gender, M/M, Not actually Vampires, Stiles is a Dark Creature
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-18
Updated: 2012-10-30
Packaged: 2017-11-10 05:31:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 33,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/462718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphy/pseuds/Sapphy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphy/pseuds/SapphyWatchesYouSleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles was just minding his own business when the demonic four year old attacked him and turned him into a dark creature. Which is a bit of a bugger considering all the effort he'd put into not becoming a werewolf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the BBC's brilliant radio comedy series, "20th Century Vampire".
> 
> I'm a dyslexic Brit, so there may be some serious errors here. Sorry.
> 
>  
> 
> I made you guys something to say thank you for all the lovely comments and feedback. [It's a list of my favourite vampire fics.](http://gluttonforpunsihment.tumblr.com/post/29690652768/t-t-t-t-t-t-touch-me-creature-of-the-night)

So Stiles is… some kind of evil demon creature now. Which is, you know, different. And kind of annoying given all the trouble he’s put into not becoming a werewolf.

You’d think, after all the time he’d spent cavorting (although totally not cavorting because that’s a stupid word) with dark creatures, he’d have learned to protect himself by now. But in his defense, he’s never come across a single instance of someone being turned into any kind of a creature of the night by an angry four year old at two in the afternoon in a public place before.

He’d just been walking through town, thinking about maybe getting a smoothie, when this demented little kid had rushed across the street and sunk its horribly pointy little teeth into Stiles’ bare arm. He hadn't thought much about it, beyond a kind of generalized ‘kids today are all psychos’ and maybe a bit of ‘why does the Universe hate me so much?’. Although looking back, the mom had been awfully apologetic. There’d been tears and hand wringing and she’d tried to drag him to hospital. In retrospect, he probably should have let her.

He hasn’t told the others yet because, well mostly because it’s seriously embarrassing, and also because he’s the man with the facts and he has no idea what’s going on. After the kid bit him he’d gone home and fallen instantly asleep. He has vague memories of bloody, disturbing dreams and the impression that pain had happened and then he’d woken up with that nagging feeling of craving something really specific but not knowing what it is. He’d poked around in the kitchen and rejected pretty much everything, until he’d found a couple of raw steaks at the bottom of the fridge. He didn’t think about it, just grabbed and bit. His first though was ‘oh thank god’ and his second was that, while this was certainly better than anything else in the fridge, it was still really unsatisfying. Kinda like getting a veggie burger when what you wanted was steak. Since he was eating raw steak, he really didn’t want to think about what it might be he really wanted.

Despite the craving still gnawing at his gut, he’d resisted eating the second steak. He could ignore it long enough to hit Google. The trouble was that he had had pretty much nothing to go on. A search for ‘demonic toddlers’ had got him some really weird YouTube links and something about a series of horrible murders in South Korea. Nothing helpful

Despite having slept all afternoon, he found himself exhausted by ten. Normally he sleeps spread out on the bed, taking up all available space and generally kicking the quilt onto the floor. That night though, he found himself shivering, despite the warmth, and had gathered every spare quilt and blanket he could find and arranged them into a kind of nest. He curled up in the center, doing his best to ignore the hunger burning inside him, and fell into a fitful sleep.

He wakes to the weird sensation of being hungry twice over, once for human food and once for something which he’s really not ready to think about yet. It takes him a moment, still dopey with sleep, to fight his way out of the blankets tangled around him. He pulls on clothes, though not with his usual randomness; letting some pressing instinct he can’t name tell him what to choose.

The second steak is still in the fridge, his dad must have got takeout on the way home from work, so Stiles eats it, and this time he’s conscious enough of what he’s doing to feel a little queasy. He still licks his fingers clean afterwards though. He’s also conscious enough to notice that he can bite through the steak like it’s white bread. He prods carefully at his teeth with his tongue and winces as his mouth fills with blood.

It tastes… weird. Not that he’s some kind of freaky blood connoisseur or anything, but he’s been bullied and generally injured enough to recognize the taste of his own blood, and this isn’t it. This is sweeter than blood and spicy like it’s been laced with chili, and thin too, like cordial that’s got too much water added.

He’s seriously considering taking the day off from school and trying again to figure out what the hell’s going on, but since he’s still got nothing to go on, and his dad is threatening to stop helping him with his gas bills if he doesn’t stop skipping all the time, he grabs his bag and heads out.

He expects Scott to notice something, the fact that he’s now eating only raw meat if nothing else, but apparently there was more method to his madness than usual this morning because Scott wrinkles his nose when he sees him and says, “Dude, when’s the last time you washed?”

He’s pretty sure it was yesterday so he sniffs his clothes and some part of his brain he didn’t know he possessed tells him they smell of human. Unwashed teenage male human, but human is the thing that sticks out. Camouflage. Apparently he’s some kind of ninja now, as well as being an evil flesh eating demon.

Things go okay during the morning. He’s quieter than usual, mulling things over in his mind to the point where Scott actually asks him if he’s overdosed on his Adderall, and he has to force himself to eat his lunch. It all tastes like healthfood. Really really boring, really healthy healthfood. That’s okay though, some days he feels too jittery to really eat. Scott looks even more worried, but he doesn’t mention it. The ADHD is a bit of a sore point.

The problem comes during P.E. They’re just running round and round the playing fields in seemingly endless, pointless circles. He’s finding it easier than usual to keep up with the jocks. He’s not the fastest, certainly, but at least he isn’t embarrassing himself for a change. He’s running behind Danny, wondering vaguely whether he can afford to buy more steak or whether it would have to be something gross like raw ground beef for dinner, when suddenly Danny isn’t in front of him anymore. He stops himself before he actually trips over Danny’s prone body, and then next thing he knows, he’s on his knees, his nose full of the scent of blood, fresh human blood, and suddenly he knows exactly what it is he’s been craving. Kneeling on the school playing field in front of the bleeding body of an almost friend really isn’t the best time to realize he’s some kind of vampire.

He pushes himself away before he can do anything weird, like stick his fingers into the bleeding gash on Danny’s leg and tear it wider (and he’s never wanted anything as much as he wants that, including Lydia Martin) or just plain take a chunk out of guy, and runs like hell for the locker rooms.

He doesn’t bother to change, just grabs his clothes and his bag and heads for the parking lot. He doesn’t know where he’s going, and he doesn’t care, just so long as it isn’t near any injured people.

Eventually he pulls up by the side of the road somewhere in the woods and just sits, staring at nothing. He’s even sitting still, which is probably a bad sign given his usual restlessness.

Blood drinking he could have dealt with. He would have been totally down with the whole vampire deal. Super strength, super speed, secret identity. Although he might still get the secret identity. He doesn’t think that will make up for the part where he wants to eat living human flesh though. Like, really wants.

His internal scale of weird has changed considerably since Scott became a werewolf, but this has to be top. He goes home. Though he does remember to stop by the butchers on the way and pick up a family pack of steak.

Half an hour of lying on his bed trying to think about everything except Danny and the smell of fresh blood achieves nothing. Thirty seconds of actively contemplating the, admittedly small and undramatic, hole in Danny’s thigh gets him harder than he’s ever been before. He’d be pretty much okay with that if he thought it was Danny rather than the blood that was getting him off. He’s pretty comfortable with most aspects of human sexuality, but apparently flesh eating demon sexuality is another matter.

A basic Google search into blood-drinking and flesh-eating lead him to some of the weirder depths of the internet and net him no actual knowledge unless you count the fact that humans are really really weird. A deeper search leads to a lot of information and absolutely no way to verify how much of it is accurate short of trial and error, which, given it deals with his possible need to kill people, doesn’t seem like the best idea.

Probably he would have ended up testing it that way anyway if Derek hadn’t chosen that exact moment to break into his bedroom.

His first thought is blank, just pure fear, but his second, close on its heels, is that maybe Derek won’t attack him now he’s a fellow dark creature. What can he say; he’s good at looking for silver linings. Derek strides towards him with his usual air of menace and then stops, sniffs and pulls a disgusted face.

“You’re a Peuchen now?” he asks. “Was being the token human around here not good enough for you anymore?”

“I’m a what now?”

“Wait, you don’t even know what you are? What the hell happened to you?!”

“I was bitten by this psycho little kid in the street. I didn’t think anything of it ‘till the whole eating raw steak thing happened.”

“Just raw steak?” Derek’s actually looking worried, which is kinda new and also completely terrifying because this is Derek Hale. Stuff’s supposed to be scared of him, not the other way around. Also, he didn’t laugh at the whole little kid thing, which is good.

“I didn’t eat Danny if that’s what you mean. I wanted to, obviously, but I got the hell out of there before anything happened.”

“Danny as in tanned skin, big eyes, gay Danny?”

“Yes that Danny. I only know one Danny. Does that matter? I kinda feel like that’s not the most important issue here!”

“Well that depends on why you wanted to eat him,” Derek says, as though it’s the most reasonable thing in the world.

“Because he was bleeding everywhere! He tripped in PE and cut his leg.”

Derek runs a hand through his hair. “Christ I’m hanging out with people who still have to take PE.”

“Dude, are you only noticing this now? My dad keeps threatening to put you on some kind of register!”

Derek paces for a moment and then turns back to Stiles. “You said you had steak. Bring me steak and we’ll talk.”

Talking with Derek is not exactly top of Stiles’ list of fun things to do today, but he needs information so he nods. “You want it cooked? ‘Cos I’m not really supposed to use the stove. Or, you know, anything involving fire. There was an incident.”

“Raw is fine.”

Somehow Stiles isn’t surprised that Derek eats raw steak. Not that there’s actually anything that weird about that, given how much better it tastes. Although that’s probably just his inner man-eating monster talking.

He fetches the steaks, shoves them onto a plate and, after a moment’s consideration, grabs a beer for Derek and a bottle of water from himself. He’d really like a Coke but he’s supposed to avoid caffeine and he’s probably in enough trouble without self-medicating with stimulants. Again.

Derek is staring at the doorway when he comes in, sitting topless on his bed. Stiles really wished it were the first time that had happened.

“Shirt?” he asks.

“Raw steak,” Derek replies. “I like that shirt.”

Stiles wonders just how messy an eater Derek is and really hopes his bedclothes aren’t going to smell of dead cow later.

He puts the plate on the edge of the bed and hands Derek the beer. He hasn’t opened it, he realizes, but Derek flicks the top off with one long claw. He takes a sip and then stares pointedly at Stiles. Politeness is so unexpected from the Alpha that it takes him a moment to realize what he’s waiting for.

“Help yourself,” he says, and watches as Derek snags the topmost steak with a claw.

He isn’t an especially messy eater, which would make Stiles suspicious that there were ulterior motives to his shirtlessness, except that this is Derek. Shirtless is his ground state of being.

He takes a steak for himself and as he bites down, he realizes that he’s actually ravenous. He devours it in about four bites and has to stop himself from reaching for another. In the back of his head his mum’s voice says, ‘visitors first’.

“That word you called me,” he says instead. “Peuchen? What’s that?”

“Something my Grandfather told me about. He said they’d pass through werewolves’ territory from time to time, but that there was a pact of non-interference and they never stayed long. They’re probably the origin of the vampire mythology.”

“If I’m a vampire, how come I want to eat people, not drink their blood?”

“Because blood drinking is the safe alternative.”

Stiles stares at him.

“The way my Grandfather explained it, Peuchen are designed to eat humans, but they choose not to. They can survive perfectly well on a diet of human blood and raw meat, which means they don’t have to kill or maim anyone to survive.”

Stiles groans. “Please tell me I get some really awesome superpowers to make up for this?”

Derek gives him that intense but not actually psychotic stare that seems to be his version of a laugh and says, “According to the legends, Peuchen can control the minds of humans. And some stories mention shape-shifting. Oh, and you get healing powers even better than werewolves. I’ve heard it said that they can regrow whole limbs and they don’t seem to have any equivalents to wolfsbane or silver.”

Stiles nods in satisfaction. “That sounds like a decent trade-off. Not that I want to be a creature of darkness, but, you know, if I’m going to be, I want to be an awesome one.”

That’s definitely a grin on Derek’s face, which is going to haunt Stiles for the rest of his days.

“Do you need to feed?” Derek asks, and Stiles eyes the one remaining steak. “That’s not what I meant.”

He looks at Derek and suddenly the toplessness makes sense. “I knew you had ulterior motives!” he exclaims. “Are you offering me your blood?”

“Depends if you can drink it. How do I smell?”

“I’m just gonna resist making any smart comments because I really don’t want to test the whole healing thing.” He leans forward and, somewhat awkwardly, sniffs Derek. He smells… nice. Not human, but close enough to make him a potential meal. “Apparently I eat werewolves too.”

Derek holds out his wrist. “Go on then. I can’t have you wondering round my territory just eating random civilians.”

That’s unusually thoughtful of Derek and definitely suspicious, but on the other hand, Derek Hale is topless in his bed and offering to let Stiles drink his blood, and fuck his human self and all its hang-ups, that is definitely the best thing ever (and way better than the time Lydia danced with him because that was sweet but this has toplessness and blood).

He’s staring, he realizes. Just sitting there, staring and not actually doing anything, which is stupid. He takes Derek’s wrist in his hand and tries not to be too obvious about the fact that he’s mentally tracing all the veins he can make out pulsing beneath the skin.

“How do I do this?” he asks, because yeah, he’s aware that pop-culture Vampires didn’t get fangs until the sixties, he knows his movie history, but all the pre-sixties vampire flicks involved people getting their throats ripped out and dying, so they’re not what he wants to base his feeding technique on.

“Just bite as little as you can while still drawing blood,” Derek says. “Because bite wounds I can heal, but you taking a chunk of my arm, probably not.”

Stiles carefully schools his face into an expression which isn’t disappointment because firstly, he’s not going to risk doing anything that scares off his potential meal and secondly, wanting to eat people is weird and icky and definitely not something he wants to do at all. Not even a bit.

He does as he’s told, bending his head to Derek’s wrist, still held tight in his grip, and bites gently. It’s a good feeling, but it doesn’t break the skin. He tries again, and this time he maybe bites a bit too hard because Derek makes a soft little noise of pain that Stiles files away to think about later because right now all he can think about is that his mouth is filling with blood. It tastes perfect, the exact thing he’s been craving, rich and hot and delicious enough that it’s easy to resist the urge to bite down harder, to tear chunks of flesh from Derek’s arm. Instead he pulls back, just enough to detach his teeth from the wound and swallows his mouthful of blood. He runs his tongue over the wound to collect more and moans at the exact same time that Derek makes another little suppressed noise of pain.

He’s vaguely aware that he’s hard, and the part of his brain that never shuts up, even with Adderall, the only part that isn’t just chanting BloodbloodbloodbloodDerekbloodblood, points out that getting off on what essentially boils down to having his dinner is depraved even for a teenager.

The wound heals up depressingly quickly and he resists the desire to bite down again, tear it wider, because he’s not actually hungry anymore and that kinda seems like taking advantage.

He blushes like crazy as he licks the last traces of blood from the wound because he’s conscious enough now to be aware of the fact that he’s licking Derek fucking Hale and that’s probably the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to him, but he can’t just let it go to waste. Starving children in Africa and all that. Or starving demons, or something.

He drops Derek’s arm and stares down at his lap. He has absolutely no idea what he’s supposed to say.

“Thanks,” he mumbles.

He feels the bed shift as Derek gets up. “That’s fine. You should try and find the kid who turned you, find out more about what you are. If they’re still in town, tell them they’ve got twenty four hours starting now to get the fuck out of Dodge. If they’re not gone by then, I kill them.”

“I thought you said Peuchen and Werewolves got along?”

Derek’s eyes narrow. “They came into my territory without making any effort to contact me and then they turn someone, someone I know, against his will. They have no right to my good will. Twenty four hours, and then I hunt them down.”

And then he’s gone, swinging out of the window and disappearing off into the darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't actually know when I started writing that there was going to be any gender switching in this fic. Apparently there is. I blame it on Dylan O'Brian's face, cos you know he'd make an adorable girl. Like I said, I have no idea where this fic is going. I don't plan stuff I write, I just type what the characters and the inspiration particles tell me to. Sorry

The great thing about having a dad who’s the Sheriff is that it makes finding people really easy – people will tell you almost anything you ask. Mrs. Elvin who runs the store on the corner says the couple with the evil child are staying in a motel on the edge of town, and she hasn’t heard anything about them leaving, so next morning he drives over there.

The old guy at the desk directs him to room eleven. He knocks and after a moment a quavering voice from inside calls, “Who is it?”

“My name’s Stiles Stillinski. I’m the guy your kid bit.”

The door is yanked open and the woman he remembers from the day before is standing there, eyes wide and terrified. Inside he can see the bitey child sitting on the floor, watching old Tom and Jerry cartoons on the room’s crappy little TV.

Her eyes are very blue and very scared. “I’m so sorry. So very sorry. Come in.”

The child glances at him when he steps over the threshold, then turns back to the TV, dismissing him as uninteresting. He sits awkwardly on the edge of the bed when the woman gestures for him to do so and waits for her to speak. Eventually she does.

“I didn’t mean for anything like that to happen, you’ve got to believe me. Corrie’s been being so good recently that I wasn’t on my guard. I swear I only took my eyes off her for a moment. What can I do to make it up to you?”

“Tell me everything you can about what I am in twelve hours. After that you’ll have to get out of town because the local Alpha is really not happy about this.”

She looks so terrified that he adds, “He said last night that he’d give you twenty four hours grace so that I could find you and ask you stuff, and he’ll stick to that.”

She nods and relaxes just a fraction. Then she sniffs the air. “You’ve been feeding.”

“Yeah. Derek, the Alpha that is, he recognized what I was and let me have some of his blood. But he didn’t know much, just stories and rumors, which is why I came looking for you.”

She looks intrigued and she seems to be losing some of her scared mouse attitude. She’s actually very pretty when she stands up straight, long dark hair looped into a rough bun and a loose sweater over skinny jeans. “We can eat werewolf?”

“Apparently. Well, he tasted really good and I’m not sick or anything, so I guess so.”

She smiles at him, a sweet shy smile and he really can’t imagine her eating anyone. “We didn’t know there was a local pack. We heard they were all killed a few years back. If we’d known we would never have presumed. Most packs are pretty friendly but there are plenty that don’t like our kind.”

“Derek seems pretty okay, he’s just pissed you turned me without asking. Or that Corrie did, rather.” He looks over at the child and thinks that it’s a good thing its mom had said her because it totally looks like a boy.

“First lesson,” the kid’s mom says, quietly. “If you’re born this way, you don’t have a gender. We call Corrie a girl because that’s what’s down on her birth certificate, but it’s just a word.”

“But I’m still a guy, right?” That’s some seriously freaky shit.

“Only when you want to be. You’ll find you can change gender. It’s part of the shape shifting abilities, but while only a few of us ever learn to take animal form, and it requires decades of training, we can all change gender. Officially I’m Corrie’s father.”

That’s… weird. Very very weird.

She smiles at him and says, “I guess we should start with some introductions. I’m Lyndsey Doyle. My wife, Anna, is out doing some shopping in town. We’re planning to leave as soon as she gets back, so I guess I’d better get on with telling you the stuff you need to know.

“I don’t really know where to begin. I was born this way and my wife had already been turned when I met her. I’ve never had to explain all this to anyone before. It might be easiest if you just ask me questions.”

Before he can stop himself, he asks, “How does the sex work?” and no, it’s not the most important thing, but it’s the one that’s top of his mind. “Not with the whole sex changing thing, I can imagine how that works, I mean like… Look, I’m sixteen, this is the 21st century. I’ve watched a lot of weird porn online, and two days ago I definitely didn’t like anything that involved anyone getting hurt. Like, not even spankings. But then when Derek let me feed from him…” He trails of, uncertain of how to explain it, but she gives him a nod and a smile that tells him clearly that she understands, so he goes on, “So I guess that being a… Derek called us Peuchen.” Again she nods. “So being a Peuchen makes me, like, automatically a sadist and if we’re all sadists, how the hell does sex work?” Then he remembers that there’s a four year old in the room.

“Don’t worry about Corrie. She’s not paying the least attention to us, and anyway, we’re very open about our bodies and what everything’s for. When you’ve got a kid who can change gender at will, you have to be. As for the sex working, it just does. Every couple finds their own dynamic, that’s true of every species, but basically it works like human sex but with more variety and a lot more blood. As I understand it, your pain threshold won’t have changed when you did, but it’ll increase over time as your body learns how hard it is to really hurt you. Like the werewolves.”

That makes sense. “How hard is it to really hurt me?”

She smiles. “Compared to a human? Pretty much impossible. The only sure fire way to kill a Peuchen is to cut off their head and then burn the body. In general, you’ll heal from any wound very quickly, almost instantaneously if it’s small, and you can regrow limbs, though that takes longer and hurts. A lot. There are stories that Peuchen can even survive having their heads chopped of, if the head it put back into place quickly enough, but I don’t know how true that is.”

“Is there anything that stops us healing? ‘Cos I saw a werewolf get shot with a wolfsbane bullet and that was horrible.”

“Salt. Never allow salt anywhere near your wounds, and don’t eat too much of it. A little bit’s okay, but it’s a good idea to avoid stuff like chips and fries. It’ll slow your healing powers.”

Damn, he loves chips. “So I’m not supposed to eat junk food, but what can I eat? Am I going to kill people?”

“Not if you don’t want to. It’s what we’re designed to do, but we’re not like werewolves. We can control it. Sometimes it can be hard, but mostly it’s fine. As to what to eat, you can eat as much human food as you like, but you won’t get much nutrition from it. Ideally you’ll live on a mixture of raw meat and human blood. Pork’s best, it’s closest to human, but beef and lamb are fine too, or poultry. You don’t need vegetables or grains, or any of that herbivore stuff.”

“What about, like, superpowers. Derek said I could hypnotize people?”

“Yeah, you can learn to. It takes a little practice though. I’d show you, but it’s not really something you can teach. It’s mainly willpower.

“You’ll have a lot more stamina than you used to. You’re not stronger, or faster, than a human, but they’ll tire a lot faster than you. And we tend to be more… acrobatic, than humans. Mostly because of the healing. We’re more prepared to take risks.”

“So, shape-shifting and hypnotism. Anything else?”

“Your sense of smell will be better, all your senses, especially in specific areas. You’ll be able to smell blood from quite a distance, and hear heart beats. You’ll recognize the scents of your friends and family in a way you didn’t use to.”

“I suppose that could be useful. Also explains why my quilt smells like Derek. Hey! I usually don’t even use one blanket when I’m sleeping, but the first night after the change, I had this compulsion to find, like, every blanket in the house and make a nest.”

“In the South American legends we get our name from, we’re a kind of reptile. We’re not actually cold blooded, but we’re not great at maintaining our core body temperature. Keeping warm is important. As to the nest… I guess that’s just your psyche trying to make yourself a safe place to sleep. I’ve never been turned, so I can’t really help with that.”

Well that’s kind of embarrassing.

“Anything else you want to ask? Annie should be home soon and we still need to pack.”

“How do I get blood? It’s not like people are just giving the stuff away.”

“Everyone has a preferred method. Steal it from blood banks, feed from coma patients, hypnotize people… Plenty of us have donors who know what we are and help us out. You’ll have to find the way that suits you. Though if you’re friends with werewolves, I’d start there. Their healing abilities should mean they can lose a lot more blood than humans. When you’re feeding from a human, try not to take more than about a pint. After that they start getting woozy.”

“Is that… is that everything? I can’t think of anything else, but then I’m kinda new to all this.”

She grabs a pad of paper from the bedside table and a pen from her handbag. “This is my number and email. If you think of any more questions, you just ask. I’m sorry I can’t do more to help, but I don’t want to risk staying any longer than I need to.”

Stiles looks at where Corrie is carefully copying the dance that Jerry’s doing and nods. “Yeah, better get her away before anything bad happens.”

He walks to the door and she stops him, a hand on his shoulder. “Good luck kiddo.”

He thinks she’s about to give him a peck on the cheek, but he ducks his head. That would be awkward in the extreme.

A car pulls up outside the motel and Lyndsey waves. “That’s my Annie back.” Annie is apparently a tall muscular Latino man, which is a bit of a mind fuck, although maybe not as much as the fact that he should be able to change gender now. That’s still the weirdest thing.

“I should go. Thanks for everything.”

“It was the least I could do. I’m just sorry I couldn’t do more. You probably won’t see us again since this town already has werewolves and a Peuchen of its own, but I’ll come if you need me.” Which is a lot more than Scott got from the guy who turned him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapters kinda short and not very good, I just wanted to get something in about the Gender switching and also Scott's initial reaction to all this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I just want to make it clear that I know very little about ADHD and nothing about the medications prescribed for it, so if I make any major mistakes or am inadvertently offensive, please do let me know. I based Styles' behaviour in this partly on the way I sometimes act when I forget to take my meds.
> 
> Take your meds people, they're important.

Stiles actually makes quite a pretty cute girl. No Lydia Martin, but better than he would have expected to look. He still looks like him, just a bit softer and smaller and generally… girlier.

If you’d asked him back when he was human what the first thing he’d do if he turned into a girl would be, he’d have said masturbate, or play with his boobs, or something along those lines. But the thing is, even though he’s a girl, he’s still him. He doesn’t look in the mirror and think, ‘hey that’s a hot girl’, he looks in the mirror and thinks ‘wow I look weird’.

His body feels awkward; everything’s new and different and he feels like he’s having to relearn everything. He stares at his naked reflection. He’s slim, but not tiny, the same chunky bones under the skin. His breasts are small and his pubic hair is frankly out of control. All his body hair. Either he’s going to have to shave it all off and then try to explain that, or he’s going to have to settle for looking like a bar-burning feminist. Not that he’s got anything against feminists, he’s all in favor of women’s right and stuff, he just doesn’t think the whole dungarees and body-hair thing is a great look. The idea of not being a girl he dismisses as ridiculous. It’s weird, but it’s also awesome. It wouldn’t have been his first choice of a superpower, but hey, it’s still a superpower. He’s yet to figure out how this is supposed to help him fight crime, but no doubt it will. If Aquaman counts as a superhero, he definitely does.

He pulls his clothes back on. His hips are pretty much the same size, just a different shape, so his jeans still fit okay. His boobs are small enough that it doesn’t look weird when he pulls his shirt on without a bra, which is good, because buying himself a bra would be an embarrassment too far. He examines himself and decides that yes, his femaleness is obvious enough to really freak people out. He calls Scott.

While he’s waiting for Scott to arrive (he’d had to make it sound like a proper emergency to get Scott over here, which he feels a bit bad about, but on the other hand, he kinda feels it’s his turn to have Scott worry about him) he attempts to do his English homework. He’s supposed to be doing a feminist reading of a popular novel. By the time Scott actually arrives he’s written:

‘A feminist reading of New Moon by Stephanie Meyer: Why? Oh God why? I DON’T WANT TO LIVE ANY MORE!’

He suspects Mr. Dawes won’t appreciate the joke. Right now he’s not entirely sure he cares.

He doesn’t go down when he hears Scott’s bike outside. Scott knows where the key is kept and he doesn’t like the idea of Scott’s freak out happening in the street, and he’s intending for Scott to have a major freak out. He’s had this coming ever since he got made all hairy.

“Dude,” Scott begins as he pushes open Stiles’ bedroom door, and Stiles just can’t help himself. He bursts out laughing.

“Not anymore,” he says, and watches Scott’s face as he realizes what’s going on. It is every bit as hilarious as he was hoping it would be.

“Stiles…” Scott says, and then just stops. He clearly has no idea what to say.

Stiles concentrates on that weird shapecolourthought at the back of his mind which seems to control his shape shifting and goes back to being male. It feels good to have a penis again. Being able to be a girl is awesome, but he’s certainly not going to be doing it on a long term basis.

“So I’m a dark creature now,” he says. “And I get way more powers than you.”

Scott just stares. Which is kinda boring – the horror was more fun than this blankness. Time for shock number two.

“Dude, sit down. You look like you’re about to faint. I’m gonna grab us something to eat.”

He is actually hungry – he’d been putting of eating until Scott arrived because he wouldn’t be Stiles Stilinski if he didn’t milk this for all it’s worth.

He grabs a bag of potato chips for Scott. The sooner they’re all used up, the sooner he’ll stop being tempted to eat them. Given the weird stuff that happens in his life, he figures he’s going to need all the healing abilities he can get. The Argents are probably going to start trying to kill him now.

He’d got some pork chops yesterday. They’re not as nice as the steaks, but they were on special offer, and Lyndsey had said they were better for him. He grabs them both Cokes because why the hell not. He’s a shape shifting man eating monster. He can have caffeine if he likes.

Scotts face goes back into the hilarious rictus of horror when he sees the raw meat. So worth being hungry.

“So this little kid bit me. Just like, ran up to me and bit me. And turns out the kid was a Peuchen, and they can infect you through a bite like werewolves, so now I’m one too. I have to admit, I’d imagined situations in which I might become a supernatural being, and I gotta tell you, that wasn’t on the list.”

“What the hell’s a Peuchen?” Scott asks, opening the bag of potato chips.

“We eat people,” Stiles says, because in his head that’s still the defining characteristic of what he is now. “Or at least, we used to. But we can live on raw meat and human blood. I’m like a vampire only with way less bad porn written about me. Also I can be a girl now, if I want to, which is both awesome and really really freaky. Like, weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me, which is saying something. And apparently if I try hard enough I can hypnotize people.” He spreads his arms, remembering just in time that he’s holding a plate with a raw pork chop on it. “I’m no longer the token ordinary human.”

Scott frowns. “You were never the token human. Allison’s human. And Lydia. Well and pretty much everyone we know.”

“I’m not talking about everyone though, I’m talking about us. Our friends. And Allison’s human, but she’s also got the whole Hawkeye thing, and a dark family secret. And Lydia is immune to werewolfism, which is pretty rare. Plus she’s not really one of us. Plus, she’s not ordinary.” Kinda soppy, but also true.

“Dude, you’re, like, a researcher and stuff. Also you’re the comic relief guy who gets kidnapped a lot.”

“You’re saying I’m your Xander?”

“Xander was cool!”

It’s moments like this he’s reminded of why, despite all the trouble and the ignoring him in favor of Allison and the being a bit of a dick sometimes, Scott will always be his best friend. Not only is his first reaction to Stiles being a dark creature to try and make him feel better about his human self, it’s to do it through Joss Wheadon references.

“Xander got the best lines, bar Spike obviously, but he never really did anything. He just got attacked and needed rescuing a lot. Also he lived in a basement. And alright yeah, I kinda was your Xander. But not anymore. I’m Spike now. Post being evil and pre going insane obviously.”

“It think we need to abandon the Buffy metaphors,” Scott says seriously. “They’re getting out of hand. Go back to the bit where the little kid turned you into a… what did you say it was called?”

“Peuchen.” Since Scott has moved on from amusing shock to actually being interested and asking sensible questions, Stiles starts eating. Chops aren’t, he decides, the best cut for eating raw. He doesn’t like the texture of pork fat raw, and there’s a lot of fat on a chop.

“So this kid bit you. Why did the kid bite you?”

“Dunno. I think she’s just a little mini psycho. Like Chucky only brunet. And bitier.”

“Okay. So what happened then?”

“Well I just figured it was one of those weird little things that happens, didn’t really think about it. Got home, slept for hours and then woke up starving and the only thing in the house that looked appetizing was some raw steak in the fridge. I was pretty much just starting to freak out when Derek turned up.”

“Derek? What the hell was he doing here?” Scott asked, suspicious.

“No idea. He never said. I think he got distracted by the part where I’m not human anymore. So he recognized what I am, and he told me and then I drank his blood and…”

“Hold on. You drank Derek’s blood. What the hell, man?”

Stiles shrugs. “I was hungry, he offered. Also he said he was worried that otherwise I’d start just randomly attacking people, which I totally wouldn’t have done, but it’s not like anyone else was offering. Not taking him up on the offer would be like… not eating cookies just because they were on a plate with a creepy picture on it. Like that one you got for your christening with the satanic rabbit orgy on it.” (That is totally what it looks like.) “Also,” he adds, because he knows more about Scott’s sex life than he needs to, and it’s frankly time Scott and Allison got a taste of their own medicine, “topless Derek Hale. Topless bleeding Derek Hale.”

“So what, you’re gay now too?”

“Nah, just doesn’t seem much point in not saying stuff. Anyway it’s not like I was deliberately not telling you I was bi, it just never really came up. Plus, Peuchen can change their gender at will. Which makes you gay and straight simultaneously if you’re not bi, which is just fucking weird and there isn’t a word for it.”

“When’s the last time you took your medication?”

“That’s… actually a good point. I don’t remember. There’s been other stuff. And I probably don’t need it anyway, I feel amazing!”

“Stiles, you’re shaking. And speaking so fast I can barely understand you. And being, for you anyway, kind of a dick.”

The hurt must show on his face because Scott adds, “Dude, even when you’re deliberately trying to upset me, you’re still nicer than pretty much everyone else I know.” Which is really sweet of him and now he thinks about it, he was just trying to upset Scott, which is way out of character for him. Maybe he should start taking his meds again. He never actually decided to stop, there was just other stuff happening.

Scott puts a supportive hand on his shoulder, and Stiles totally doesn’t think about the fact that his wrist is within biting distance, and says, “Dude, take your meds and then we’ll talk properly. You know I don’t care what you are, you’ll always be my best friend, but we need to know what you can do, and why Derek came to visit you. We’ll figure this out.”

Scott is the best friend ever.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I didn't expect to be writing anything from Allison's POV, but here it is. It's another short one, but this has actual plot so I hope that makes up for it. I've finally figured out where this story is going. Hurrah!
> 
> I've made Scott kinda the perfect boyfriend in this, essentially 'cos Scott's got to have some personality beyond angst and that face he pulls when he's confuse.
> 
> As always, let me know if you spot any British-ism. This is pretty much the first thing I've ever written set across the pond so I'm sure there's mistakes.

The thing that bothers Allison most about the impromptu training sessions her dad keeps springing on her is that they always seem to come on really nice days, when she’d much rather be out enjoying the sunshine with her friends. Or more likely, Scott. If her dad trained her on wet days, or just ordinary days, when she’s bored and putting off homework, she’d probably quite enjoy them. Her family being werewolf hunters is still something of a mind-fuck, as Stiles would put it, but the actual skills they seem to think she might need are kind of awesome. Escaping from locked rooms, shooting a man in the head from across a parking lot (although she swears to herself that she’ll never ever do that to anything other than the dummies her dad uses for training). Even the strategy lessons are fun. Just not when she’d rather be with Scott (although, alright, she’d always rather be with Scott. When she’d rather be with her friends is more accurate).

Today’s lesson is a stealthy one – specifically, spotting and shaking a tail. Of course, spotting her tail is easy because firstly, her dad just told her that she had one and secondly, it’s Dean, who she doesn’t know especially well, but who spends a lot of time at the house talking to her dad and Grandfather. He’s one of what she mentally catalogues as Gerard’s grunts. Scott calls them the redshirts and refuses to explain the reference, which probably means it’s something so nerdy that even he’s ashamed of it. She makes a mental note to ask Stiles.

They’re training (although it’s more like a game of hide and go seek than the terrifying and visceral mind-fucks that the training sessions can sometimes be) in the parking lot of the big Wal-Mart just outside of town and Allison’s actually having a lot of fun, ducking between vehicles and hiding in the bushes on the edge of the lot. She’s managed twice to get away from Dean, lying flat on her stomach under cars and trying not to giggle at the puzzled expression on his face when he realizes he can’t see her, but both times he finds her again eventually.

He’s got his back to her now, checking under a Jeep, and she leaps to her feet from behind the trashcan she’d been using for cover, and sprints towards the bushes. She knows without looking when he sees her and follows, she can hear his heavy footsteps and harsh breaths as he tries to keep up with her, but she’s faster. She’s just starting to feel the exhilaration of running, feeling the adrenaline pumping, when there’s a noise she’s all too familiar with and a cry of pain. She spins round to see Dean, far closer than she’d thought; only an arm’s reach away, staggering, his hand clapped to his right arm. Blood is seeping between his fingers.

She freezes for barely a second and then some instinct she didn’t know she had kicks in and she grabs Dean, pulling him to the floor with her behind the bulk of an old station wagon. There’s another shot, and the screech of a car alarm sounds when the widow of a sports car behind them is shattered.

“How bad is it?” she asks Dean, glad that, as one of the redshirts, he’s able to stay calm and give her a sensible answer.

“Bad. The bullet hit the bone and it’s bleeding a lot.”

Allison shrugs of the blouse she’s wearing. Until now it’s always annoyed her that it’s so sheer she has to wear an undershirt, but now she’s grateful as she tugs the flimsy top over her head and presses the fabric onto the wound. The top will be ruined, but that doesn’t matter.

She hears footsteps behind her and tenses, half expecting it to be their attacker, but it’s only her father.

“They’ve gone,” he pants. “I didn’t manage to get a good look at them. Did you?”

Allison shakes her head. “I didn’t see them at all, just the movement in the bushes.” And then suddenly something occurs to her. “Wait, is this a set up? It’s not another of your training things is it, because if it is…?” She has no idea what she’ll do if she finds out her dad arranged for one of his own men to be shot, but it’ll be something drastic. Running away and living on Lydia’s bedroom floor maybe.

Her dad shakes his head and she lets out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. She hates that she thinks things like that about her dad, but since Kate… she doesn’t know who she can trust anymore. Except Scott of course.

Her dad helps Dean to his feet. “We need to get him to the hospital,” he says, wrapping one arm around Dean’s torso. She looks at the concern writ large on his face and tells herself that he’s not like Kate. He’s her daddy. “Call the police and tell them we’re going straight to ER. Will you okay here until mom picks you up?”

She nods. “I’ll call her as soon as I’ve spoken to the police,” she promises him, hating that she’s lying but reassuring herself that it’s necessary.

The woman who answers her 911 call is patient and efficient and promises to send someone to the hospital straight away to take statements.

She calls her mom next, reassuring her that she’s fine and implying without saying it outright that she’s gone with her dad to the hospital.

She calls Scott and tells him where to meet her. She hangs up before he wants her to and sits on the tarmac, knees tucked under her chin. She practices conjugating French verbs in her head while she waits. She’d been advised not to take French, since she’d never studied it before, but she likes languages and she’s determined to catch up what she missed.

It isn’t until Scott arrives that she lets herself actually think about what’s happened.

He gets out of the car, worry written large on his features when he sees her, and she just can’t stay stoical anymore.

He’s obviously freaked at her reaction to seeing him, but he’s always been good at waiting for her to work through stuff in her own time so he just holds her while she cried, stroking one hand through her hair and pressing soft kisses to her forehead.

Eventually the sobs let up and she can breathe freely again. Her face feels red and swollen and her nose is stuffed with snot, but it was Scott who lay curled around her while she mourned for Kate, so he’s seen her in worse states.

Gently, he’s always so gentle with her, he guides her to the car. It suddenly occurs to her that when she’s asked him to get her, she hadn’t actually asked if he’d got the car. She thinks gratefully of Melissa, because if she hadn’t been the sort of awesome mom who would always always lend her son the car if his girlfriend needed him then he probably would have called Stiles, and much as she likes Stiles she doesn’t ever want him to see her like this. She’s not comfortable with sharing her emotions at the best of times.

Scott slides into the driver’s seat and just looks at her, waiting for her to speak.

“We were training,” she says at last. “Me and my dad and Dean. And someone shot Dean.”

“Who?!” Scott’s all attention now, the idea of a threat to her bringing a little of his wolf to the fore.

“We don’t know. Didn’t see them. I was supposed to be learning how to shake of a tail, but really it was like a big game of hide and seek. It was fun. And then there was a shot and when I turned round Dean was right behind me, and someone had shot him in the arm. They fired another shot, but we hid behind a car and they missed by miles. Dad’s taken Dean to ER.”

Scott gapes at him. “Why?” he asks. “Why would someone shoot him? Is he important or…”

“He’s just one of Gerard’s people,” she says. “He’s not high up among the hunter or anything. And he’s not an Argent, just one of the hangers on.”

Scott frowns. “You said he was close. How close?”

She thinks. “About at far from me as you are now,” she says at last. “Maybe a bit further but not much.”

“Well maybe…” he begins, but trails of. He probably doesn’t want to worry her, but she can see what he’s thinking as clearly as if he’d said it. He’s an open book to her.

“Maybe they were aiming for me,” she says and there’s a long silence.

“Well we won’t know anything until I can talk to my dad,” she says at last. “Take me home?” Her hands are shaking, she notices, fear and adrenaline still buzzing in her mind.

Scott leans across and kisses her, slow and sweet. “You’re going to be fine,” he tells her, very serious. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short, in need of beta'ing, and a bit rubbish, but this chapter really didn't want to be written. I just got down what I could so I could move on. Sorry

Stiles is lying on his bed, staring at his face in a little hand mirror he’d discovered under the sink in the bathroom, trying to change the color of his eyes. So far all he’s achieved is a headache.

His phone buzzes its way across his bedside table. He reaches out a hand, closing his fingers around it when it buzzes its way off the edge of the table and into his hand.

‘1 New Text from Scott’

He opens it.

‘hey cn u pik me up frm wrk. Bikes gt pnctur + nEd 2 tlk 2 u’

He shakes his head. He’s been trying to persuade Scott for years that it isn’t actually necessary to text in text speak. His lessons clearly aren’t working.

He glances down at himself – he’s wearing a charity fun run t-shirt which is nearly clean and the jeans which look best on his girl-self but which fit really badly when he’s male. It’ll do for Scott.

He waves to his dad as he passes the living room. He’s actually home for a change, watching the baseball and eating the remains of the take-out they’d had for supper. Normally Stiles spends every available moment he can with his dad, but he really hates baseball.

“I’m just going to pick Scott up,” he says, peering round the living room door. “His bike’s got a puncture and his mum’s on the night shift this week.”

His dad waves a hand to show he hears, but doesn’t take his eyes of the game.

Scott loves his work at the shelter, and never leaves until he has to, so Stiles goes in to find him when he arrives. If he’s finished up all his jobs, chances are he’ll be out back where the small animal cages are, playing with the rabbits and ferrets.

He only gets as far as the front desk.

“Uh, Scott?”

“Back here dude.”

“Yeah, I know. But I’m, uh, I’m stuck in the counter.”

There’s rapid footsteps and then Scott and Dr Deaton are standing there staring at him. Dr Deaton holds out a hand to stop Scott getting too close.

“Who are you?”

“Man, you know me! I come here all the time. The question is, what the heck’s with your desk?”

Stiles had got halfway through the opening in the front desk when suddenly he finds he can’t move – can’t go forwards or backwards, he’s just stuck there looking stupid.

“The desk is spelled. Dark Creatures can’t enter without an invite.”

“How come I don’t have an invite? Even Derek’s got one!”

“Because the real Stiles doesn’t need one. Because the real Stiles isn’t a Dark Creature.”

“Wasn’t. Wasn’t a Dark Creature. There was an incident involving a demonic toddler.”

“You’re a Peuchen?”

Scott gasped. “How did you know that?”

“I’ve treated a couple of bite victims. They’re aggressive when they’re little.”

If he weren’t still stuck in the furniture, Stiles would feel incredibly relieved to know he isn’t the only one to have been turned in such an undignified way.

“Hold still, I’ll let you out.”

The vetinarian closes his eyes and muttered under his breath, and suddenly Stiles can move again.

“You got your stuff Scott?” he asks. “I don’t want to stay here, it’s full of booby traps.”

There’s an incredible awkward moment while Scott goes to fetch his bag, where Stiles and Dr Deaton just stare at one another silently. He’s glad to get out of there.

“Someone tried to shoot Allison,” Scott says as soon as they’re outside.

Stiles stops walking and just stares.

“She was out training with her dad and one of Gerard’s people and someone took a pot shot at her. Hit the guy she was training with in the arm. He’s in hospital. She’s fine, just shaken up.”

“Oh my God, they shot the red shirt?”

Scott snorts with laughter. “Well surely that’s what they’re for?”

“So have you got any leads? Any ideas of who it might have been.”

Scott shakes his head. “Only that whoever it was, was human. There hadn’t been any other werewolves nearby, I’d have smelt them if so.”

“It’s got to be something to do with her Granddad though, because otherwise, why shoot her? She’s not the sort to make enemies, and anyway, she hasn’t been here all that long. The only thing about her that could possibly make anyone want to hurt her is her family. But in that case, how come her attacker was human?”

Scott nods. “I know man. It makes no sense. If you want to kill her, why attack her when she’s out with her dad and another hunter? She drives herself to school and back every day. Surely it would be easier to get her then, when she’s alone?”

“Maybe it’s not because of her family. Maybe it’s because of us? You?”

“Like someone trying to get to me through her? That makes no sense man. If they’ve got it in for werewolves they’d start with Derek and his pack, surely?”

“What if it’s to do with you and her? Like some nutter who thinks it’s sinful for humans and werewolves to mix? I mean, the guys who arrived with Gerard have got to be crazy, surely, or they wouldn’t be following him!”

Scott nods. “Yeah, that actually makes the most sense. Seems a bit extreme to just start with the shooting though. Wouldn’t they start with, like, warning her off or something?”

Stiles shakes his head. “None of this makes any sense. We haven’t got enough facts to work on. We’re just gonna have to stay close to Allison and hope we can protect her when whoever it is tries again.”

Scott gives a little whining noise of worry, but he has to admit that, much as he dislikes it, their only option is to wait for Allison to be attacked again, and hope that, next time, they’ll be there to save her.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The attacks on Allison continues and this time it's a little more serious

“Ooo, cupcakes!”

It’s been three days since the redshirt was shot, and so far nothing more has happened, except that Allison’s started to get really annoyed with Stiles and Scott shadowing her every move and stealing little bits of her lunch. That last had been Stiles’ idea and was mainly inspired not by any particular care for her safety, but from the fact that she had started to ask awkward questions about his lack of eating.

He can still eat human food, but most of it tastes bland now. Even pizza tastes more like muesli than pizza. He’s discovered though, to his great delight, that the sugarier a food, the less the taste is affected, so he lives on a diet of raw pork and candy. He’s pretty sure he’ll regret it in the future, but for now he has a metabolism to die for and he can eat whatever the hell he likes. Like, for example, the cupcakes Allison has brought to school with her.

He grabs one, jerking his hand out of the way just quick enough to avoid her snatching it back off him, and crams as much as he can into his mouth at once.

It’s pretty good, vanillaey and sweet, but with a weird metallic aftertaste. He’s debating trying to steal another when the pain starts.

It doesn’t happen slowly, no gentle tingling or dull ache to warn him. One second he’s fine, the next he’s doubled over in agony, clutching at his gut.

The girl’s loos are nearest and he stumbles into them and braces himself over a sink just in time. A moment later he’s bringing up what feels like the entire lining of his stomach, filing the sink with a stinking mess of blood and half-digested meat.

He feels a hand on his back, rubbing soothing circles, and realizes Allison must have followed him in.

He’s still heaving, his body still trying to rid itself of the toxin, but his stomach is empty.

Allison vanishes from behind him for a moment and then reappears, this time pressing a wad of cool wet tissues to his face.

“Can you move,” she asks, “because if so, we need to get you to the hospital.”

Stiles shakes his head. “No. No hospital.”

“Stiles you’re vomiting up blood. Don’t argue with me. You’re going to hospital.”

He shakes his head again, more violently, and then regrets it as it makes the room spin. He has to make Allison understand, and quickly, because his vision is graying and his legs feel like jelly.

“Derek,” he croaks, the Alpha’s the first name that comes to mind, “Derek will know. He’s…”

His legs give out and Allison catches him just before he hits the floor.

“Why Derek?” she asks, determined, apparently, to be difficult.

“He’ll know what to do. If I go to hospital… my dad. And the healing.” Words are getting harder and harder to form. He just hopes she’s filling in the blanks.

She gives him a long hard look, but eventually she nods. “Come on then.”

With her half supporting him he manages to stagger as far as the parking lot. Allison is struggling under his weight, and he keeps thinking that he’s lighter as a girl but the pain is still too intense for him to focus on anything else.

He falls into the car when Allison finally gets the door open and immediately closes his eyes. She’s promised to take him to Derek. Derek will know what to do.

**oOOOo**

Allison can’t help her gaze sliding over to Stiles all the way to the warehouse which Scott had told her was Derek’s new base. She has no idea why she’s doing this, giving in to Stiles’ demands when he could have been delirious with pain. He needs to go to hospital. She knows that. He was vomiting up blood. What if she takes him to Derek and he dies because she’d been right and he had needed medical care. It’d be her fault.

But what he’d said about healing, and the way he’d asked immediately for Derek, raised dark suspicions in her mind.

What if Stiles’ is a werewolf? Surely Scott would have told her? Surely she would’ve noticed? But then she’s only even known that werewolves exist for a few months. Maybe Stiles is better at hiding the changes than Scott had been? That thought she dismisses. Stiles is many things, but subtle is not one of them. If he is a werewolf, she’d know. But if he isn’t, why ask for Derek?

It takes her a moment to pluck up the courage to get out of the car when they arrive. Dropping in on Derek Hale because Stiles is forcing her is one thing, but an Argent dropping by unannounced with the unconscious (and possibly dying oh God oh God please don’t be dying) body of someone who’s helped him numerous times is something else entirely.

She’s saved from having to knock on the door and explain by Derek himself appearing. He takes one look at Stiles’ slumped form and rounds on her, eyes glowing red.

“What have you done to him?!” he demands, voice a menacing growl. More of a menacing growl than usual, that is.

“Nothing,” she squeaks, then clears her throat and tries again. She’s an Argent, damn it, she will not be intimidated. “He ate something. I think it must have been poisoned because he was vomiting blood. I tried to take him to hospital but he insisted on coming here. He said you’d know what to do.”

“The thing he ate, was it salty?”

“What?!”

“Was. It. Salty?”

Allison shakes her head. “It was a cupcake.”

Derek lets out a breath she hadn’t known he’d been holding. “He’ll be fine then. He just needs time.”

He hefts Stiles’ unconscious body from the car with no apparent effort and carries him, tenderly as a mother with a cub, into the warehouse. Since she hasn’t been expressly forbidden to do so, Allison follows them inside.

Derek lays Stiles on a mattress on the floor of a derelict subway car, one of two that stood against one wall of the place, and pulls a moth-eaten blanket over him. Then he seats himself a little way away and gestures for her to join him.

“Tell me everything,” he says.

She explains what happened and produces the box of cupcakes when he demands it (he never just asks for anything, she notices).

He sniffs at it and pulls a face. “Drain cleaner,” he says. “No wonder Stiles is so ill. Where did you get these?”

“Me and mom made a load last night. It’s Gerard’s birthday tomorrow. There were more than we were going to need so mom suggested I bring some of the spares into school today and share them round.”

“Has anyone else eaten any?”

Allison shakes her head. “I usually eat some of the cake mix, but mom wouldn’t let me. She’d been reading some article about how someone did that and they got salmonella from the raw eggs and died. I think Stiles is the first person to eat any of them. I did think the baking powder smelt a bit funky, but baking powder does just smell nasty so I didn’t think anything of it. Is Stiles going to be okay?”

“Fine,” Derek replies, with his usual brusqueness. “Why would someone poison your cupcakes?”

So she tells him about Dean and the attack and Stiles’ theory than maybe it’s one of Gerard’s people doing it, someone who doesn’t like that she’s with Scott.

Derek scowls. “Sounds unlikely. They’d have gone after Scott. Also, this was too casual to be something personal. Anyone could have been poisoned.” The scowl deepens. “Anyone was.”

**oOOOo**

Stiles comes too lying on the floor of what looks like a train car, surrounded by the scent of Derek and beneath it, that of his pack. He has a moment of desperately trying to explain this in a way which doesn’t involve him making a drunken pass at Erica, then a faint twinge of pain in his gut reminds him.

“Was I just nearly killed by a cupcake?” he asks the universe in general. “Because if so, I’m not going to be happy. That’s like the worst death ever. Worse than Heraclitus.”

He’s vaguely aware of movement in his peripheral vision and then his arms are full of a weeping Allison.

“I thought you were going to die,” she chokes, clutching him uncomfortably tight. “I thought would were going to die and it would have been all my fault and then I’d have had to tell Scott and your dad and I’m so sorry Stiles I didn’t know about the cakes being poisoned I promise!”

Stiles’ pats her back awkwardly and does his best to extricate himself from her embrace. Eventually he says, “Allison if you don’t stop hugging me I’m going to smell like you and then Scott will go into some kind of wolfy freakout and gut me. And sprinkle salt in the wounds.”

That was perhaps a little unnecessary, but it works. Allison moves back enough that he can sit up properly and take in his surroundings. And Derek, who is staring at him with a worrying intensity.

Disturbed by the possibility that Derek might have saved his life he says, “Dude, you have like the worst taste in interior decoration ever” and turns back to Allison to demand an explanation.

Once he’s satisfied himself that all Derek actually did was watch him sleep like the creeper he is, he can actually look the other guy in the face without blushing. Which makes a nice change, now that he thinks about it.

“You okay?” Derek asks, after a staring match of epic proportions.

Stiles had thought he was fine, just a bit tired, until he tries to answer and finds that all he can manage is a small groan. Taking a deep breathe he manages to force out, “hungry.”

Derek is by his side in a moment, wrist outstretched. “If you get blood on my bed I’ll gut you.”

Had he been fully in control of himself, Stiles would have said something snappy, possibly relating to the fact that he isn’t that messy an eater, or that Derek’s threats really don’t work on him now he can survive having his head chopped of. Sarcasm suddenly doesn’t seem important though (and he never thought he’d say that) because Derek’s offering to feed him.

The initial penetration (and yeah, he’s giggling at that in his mind) is blissful. There’s something inherently _right_ in the feeling of his teeth sinking into pliant flesh. Then his mouth floods with hot blood and scrap everything he’s said previously, _this_ is the best feeling ever. He takes a huge gulping mouthful and his whole body sings with it.

All too quickly the wound begins to close up, the flow of blood slowing to a trickle and then stopping all together. Reluctantly, Stiles begins to pull back. He wants more, but he’s also aware that Derek is doing this out of the goodness of his heart (he has a heart, who knew?) and he doesn’t want to take advantage.

“You can take more if you like,” Derek says, apparently reading his mind. Sod Scott, Derek is officially his new favorite person.

He puts the second bite right over the skin that’s just finished healing, and he really hopes the stuff Derek had said about being able to smell emotion was a joke (or that it didn’t work now he wasn’t human any more) because _God_ the feeling of his teeth slicing into soft flesh… There’s the urge, impossible to ignore, to carry on biting, to tear chunks of flesh from Derek’s arm, but he pushes it aside in favor of experimenting with sucking. Last time he’d fed he’d simply let the pulsing of Derek’s veins pump blood into his mouth. Now he closes his lips tightly over the bite marks and sucks hard and… wow. That is definitely better than just allowing his victims to bleed.

And apparently, whether werewolves can or not, Stiles can smell arousal now and that’s definitely Derek. Figures he’d be a masochist. Possibly that explains his taste in interior decoration.

The images of Derek begging Stiles to hurt him are easy to push aside for now, with hot fresh blood to distract him, but he has a feeling they’ll come back to haunt him. He is totally not the right guy to be turned into a magical sadist with a bloodplay fetish. He hasn’t got the muscle for one thing.

At last he pulls away, lapping at the wound to gather every last drop of blood. That’s when he remembers Allison.

She’s staring at them open mouthed. If he didn’t know she could… well not kill him, but make things very painful for him, then he’d have laughed at her.

“There was an evil child, I got bitten, now I live on a diet of raw meat and werewolf blood. Alright?”

She nods slowly. She’s always been good at dealing with shocks. “Thank God for that!” is all she says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why not come be my friend over in the Tumblrverse. Find me and my recs at gluttonforpunishment.tumblr.com


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter hasn't actually been beta'd or yank-picked yet BUT I LOVE IT so I'm posting it. And changing my Steam name to WolfyMcWolpherson

“So when you were vomiting. Was that actually, like, your internal organs, or just what you had for breakfast?”

Stiles shrugs. He feels fine now, but there’s a tenderness in his middle that suggests the drain cleaner had done some serious damage before his body rejected it. “A little from column a, a little from column b.”

They’re sitting on what looks suspiciously like a stolen park bench, drinking soda and, in Stiles’ case, eating a raw chicken burger and ignoring the disgusted looks Allison keeps shooting in his direction. Raw chicken is kinda like eating a sponge, but it’s meat and he’s starving. Derek’s blood might be delicious and nutritious (and make his pants uncomfortably tight, but he hopes the others haven’t noticed that) but it isn’t exactly filling.

“So do you, I mean can you, eat anything other than raw meat and blood?”

Stiles swallows his mouthful of raw chicken before he responds. His mother would have been proud. “Candy. Lots of candy. Best thing about being this hyperactive? You don’t put on weight.”

“Why only raw meat and candy?”

“’Cos everything else tastes like health food now. Seriously, my dad actually made a Chilli the other night, corn bread and everything, and I couldn’t eat more than about three spoonfuls. Which is a tragedy ‘cos when he’s actually home my dad’s a damn good cook.”

“What’s the name of what you are now?”

“You’re going to look me up in the bestiary aren’t you?”

Allison looked surprised. “Of course. Wouldn’t you, if you could?”

That, he has to admit, is true. “Peuchen. I’m a Peuchen. Not that it’ll do you any good, since you still need Lydia to translate it.” He sees Allison’s face. “No. No, don’t you dare. I don’t care if you think she won’t figure it out, you are absolutely not getting Lydia to translate stuff about me from the bestiary.”

Allison’s face falls. “How else are we going to find out about you?”

“We’ll figure it out as we go along. It’s not like I’m going to go crazy and attack people.”

“But…”

Stiles is looking her right in the eye as he says, “No, Allison,” and he feels with a jolt the spark of power that accompanies the words.

Allison’s mouth snaps shut and she stares at him, wide eyed.

He can’t help it; he leaps to his feet and punches the air. “I did it!” he cries. “I have mind control!”

The expression on Derek’s face as he watches them could almost be a smile.

**oOOOo**

**WolfyMcWolpherson:** Dude where did you go today? And what did you do to Allison. She’s seriously mad at you.

 **TheRealProfessorX:** I mind controlled her!!!!!!!

**WolfyMcWolpherson:** …

**WolfyMcWolpherson:** That explains the name change

**WolfyMcWolpherson:** I can’t decide if I should be really excited that you have an new superpower, or really angry that you used it on Allison

**TheRealProfessorX:** Given your anger issues, I’d go with the first one. I like my guts where they are

**TheRealProfessorX:** Also I didn’t make her doing anything bad

**TheRealProfessorX:** And I didn’t mean to do it

**TheRealProfessorX:** She wanted to get Lydia to translate the chapter on Peuchen from the bestiary. Not cool

**WolfyMcWolpherson:** It’s not like she’d know. And it could be really useful!

**TheRealProfessorX:** Don’t make me mind control you Scott!

**WolfyMcWolpherson:** Dude, we’re talking on Steam. I’m pretty sure you can’t do that shit over the internet.

**TheRealProfessorX:** Alright, fine. Don’t make me bite you!

**WolfyMcWolpherson:** Okay, two things dude. One, that doesn’t work over the internet either and two, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Brain to mouth filter. You need one.

**TheRealProfessorX:** We should totally have a fight though. It’s like in the rules. We’re best friends and we have superpowers, we totally have to fight each other now

**WolfyMcWolpherson:** That is totally not a rule. The only time I can think of that that happened was Batman and Robin, when Poison Ivy turned them against each other. And that doesn’t even count because they don’t have superpowers.

**WolfyMcWolpherson:** Also I’m not going to fight you

**TheRealProfessorX:** You know you want to

**WolfyMcWolpherson:** No. You want to. Not the same thing.

**WolfyMcWolpherson:** Don’t go looking for fights dude. Just because you can heal the injuries, that doesn’t mean they don’t hurt.

**TheRealProfessorX:** I know that doofus. I nearly died today.

**WolfyMcWolpherson:** What!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**TheRealProfessorX:** Did Allison not tell you?

**TheRealProfessorX:** Someone poisoned the cupcakes her and her mom made for Gerard. I ate one. Not fun.

**TheRealProfessorX:** It’s all good though. I threw up blood all over the ladies room and then passed out in Derek’s bed and now I’m fine

**WolfyMcWolpherson:** WTF

**WolfyMcWolpherson:** I know there’s other stuff I should be worrying about. But seriously, Derek’s bed?!!!

**TheRealProfessorX:** Easy on the !!!’s dude. Allison wanted to take me to hospital. I panicked and told her to take me to Derek’s. In my defense, I had just eaten drain cleaner. Which is pretty much just bleach. So yeah. I’d eaten bleach.

**TheRealProfessorX:** I think that excuses my lapse of judgment

**WolfyMcWolpherson:** OMG I can’t believe Allison didn’t tell me! She swore she’d tell me if anything else happened!

**TheRealProfessorX:** I think it slipped her mind when I MIND CONTROLLED her

**TheRealProfessorX:** Fuck yeah superpowers

**WolfyMcWolpherson:** I think you should probably be less excited about having mindfucked my girlfriend, even if you do have superpowers

**WolfyMcWolpherson:** You’re totally going to use them for evil, aren’t you?

**TheRealProfessorX:** Notice how my usename isn’t The Real Magneto

**TheRealProfessorX:** Although that doesn’t really work

**TheRealProfessorX:** Notice how my name isn’t The Real White Queen

**TheRealProfessorX:** Although I would look badass in her costume. White PVC ftw!

**TheRealProfessorX has changed his name to EmmaFrost**

**EmmaFrost:** where do you even buy white PVC?

**WolphyMcWolpherson:** Sex shops

**EmmaFrost:** Does Beacon Hills have any sex shops?

**WolfyMcWolpherson:** Dude you’ve lived here your entire life. You know it doesn’t.

**EmmaFrost:** Shit

**EmmaFrost:** Want to come to town with me tomorrow?

**WolfyMcWolpherson:** I’m going to go now freak

**EmmaFrost:** I command you to stay!!!

**WolfyMcWolpherson is now offline**

**EmmaFrost:** I’m so going to bite you next time I see you

**WolfyMcWolpherson is offline. Your message will be delivered when they next log in.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm not proud of this chapter, but I wanted to get it out of the way so I can move onto more Sterek

“What happened to your car?” Lydia asks, turning the mirror towards her so she can see to do her lipstick.

Allison jerks the mirror back to where she wants it. “You’re going to get us both killed if you keep doing that Lydia. My car’s making this weird graunching noise when I turn left so Dad’s letting me use his while he gets mine fixed.”

“I don’t think graunching is a word. There’s a red light ahead.”

Allison resists the urge to roll her eyes. She loves Lydia, she really does, but the girl has some serious control issues. Unfortunately keeping her around is the only way to rid herself of her supernatural stalkers, since Scott and Stiles are both, rightfully, terrified of Lydia and her razor tongue.

“I had noticed that thanks. I do actually know how to drive.”

“Then why aren’t we slowing down?” One day someone is going to punch that smug expression right off Lydia’s face, and today might well be that day. Although…

“I don’t know. Fuck, the brakes aren’t responding!”

Lydia isn’t panicking. Why isn’t she panicking?

“Turn left here,” she says, still unbearably calm and smug.

“What?!”

She reaches across and grabs the steering wheel, yanking it around before Allison has a chance to react.

The car skids round, heading towards a narrow side street just before the lights.

“Just keep driving, don’t go too fast and follow my instructions,” Lydia orders, her voice hard as she takes control of the situation.

“We’re going to wrong way down a one way street,” Allison cries, trying but failing to suppress her fear.

“And no one’s going to be about here at this time of day,” Lydia retorts. “I know what I’m doing. Turn right.”

Allison weighs the options for a brief moment and decides that she trusts Lydia to get them through this without any major accidents, so she does as she’s told.

There’s a couple of rather hairy moments when people pull out of side roads too quickly, and once she has to swerve to avoid a child on a bike (she screams when he rides into the road but Lydia merely says coldly, “Survival of the fittest”). Eventually though, Lydia’s directions bring them out onto a dirt track running straight into the woods.

“Take your foot of the pedal and just let it roll to a stop,” Lydia says. “There won’t be anyone coming the other way.”

Allison lifts her hands from the wheels and takes deep calming breaths. At last the car rolls to a stop. She turns to thank Lydia, and sees to her amazement that her usually stone cold friend is shaking with silent tears.

She leans awkwardly across and wraps her arms around her friend and holds her while she works out her shock and fear.

Eventually she stops crying long enough to mutter into Allison’s shoulder, “I told you I was a genius.”

Allison smiles and replies, “I never doubted it for a second.”

**oOOOo**

Derek curses himself for his stupidity. He knew, _knew_ , that coming to the match was a bad idea, but he’d done it anyway because two of his pack were playing and Isaac was so adorably proud of being on the team. Not that he’d ever tell Isaac he thought he was adorable. Stiles would be there too, he knew, bench warming like always, and he’d been worrying about him. He knew logically that it was almost impossible to hurt him now, but he was so used to thinking of him as human and breakable that it was hard not to worry. Especially since the last time he’d seen him he’d just been poisoned.

He determinedly didn’t think about… that part of their last meeting. That wasn’t important, however much he’d enjoyed it. What’s important is that someone is trying to kill the Argent girl and that puts his pack at risk. If only he’d thought of that when he decided to come to the match.

Chris Argent had been waiting for him on the track that leads through the woods to the back of the playing fields. There’s a fence between the woods and the school, but it’s easy to climb. The hunter is leaning against it when he reaches it.

“Long time no see Derek,” he says, his tone mocking.

“Yeah, it’s been days since you last tried to kill one of my pack,” Derek retorts. Chris is, he knows, the best of the Argents, but that really isn’t saying much.

“I’ve never tried to kill them. I stick to the code.”

That, at least, is true and something he grudgingly respects the older man for. It’s just a shame there’s nothing in his code to stop him killing Derek.

“That’s what I’m here about. There’s been an attempt on Allison’s life.”

Derek doesn’t speak, doesn’t ask after her. Clearly it’s a new one and clearly she’s fine or Chris wouldn’t be here talking to him.

“Someone cut the brakes on my car. She was borrowing it. Fortunately, her and Lydia are fine.” Lydia is the red-headed girl Stiles moons after, Derek remembers. “Gerard blames you.”

Derek nearly laughs at that. “If I wanted your daughter dead, she’d be dead. I’m a werewolf. I don’t need to cut brakes or take pot shots at anyone.”

“You know then. I thought you would. I’m here to warn you. I’m doing what I can to find out what’s really going on, but Gerard is baying for your blood.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I don’t care if you die. In fact next time we meet, I will be doing my best to put you down. But your pack are just kids and they’ve done nothing wrong. Gerard doesn’t make that distinction.”

Derek nods. “Thank you. And so you know, we’re trying to find Allison’s attacker as well. One of my pack was hurt protecting her. As long as this goes on, they’re all in danger.”

Chris gives him a humorless smile. “A truce then, until we find whoever’s doing this.”

“And that’ll do so much good when the head hunter is still out for my blood.”

Chris shrugs. “It’s the best I can do. Good luck finding him. Oh,” he adds, as he begins to walk away, “I wouldn’t go to the match, if I were you. Gerard’s waiting.” And then he’s gone, slipping off into the woods with a silent tread that comes only from years of training.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A pack meeting and gel pens to the max

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am now open for suggestions for the name of Stiles' power, 'cos I can't keep mentally calling it Gender Dysmorphia power. Suggestions on a postcard please (or just in the comments since we're not naming a Blue Peter dog)
> 
> Also can someone tell me who to credit for the were-house joke? Credit to mm_coconut for the sparkly pens, though I have taken them to the next level

“So someone’s trying to kill Allison,” Stiles says cheerfully, when no one else speaks up.

They’re gathered in the warehouse (ha, were-house), Derek’s pack and what he tries not to think of as Scott’s. Yeah he Scott and Allison are at least as close, if not closer, than Derek’s pack, but Scott is so not their Alpha. Actually, now he thinks about it, they don’t actually have an Alpha, and he kinda feels they should. Not Scott obviously, that’s a terrible idea. Or him, because he’s the research guy, and also pretty much incapable of telling people what to do. Which leaves Allison. He really doesn’t want to be a Beta to Allison’s Alpha.

“I don’t want Allison to be my Alpha,” he says, and then blushes when everyone just stares. Scott recovers first (he’s most used to Stiles’ thought processes).

“There’ve been three attempts on her life,” Scott says, and Stiles breathes a sigh of relief when everyone turns to look at him instead. “Gerard think’s we, the werewolves I mean, are responsible.”

“Or he says he thinks that because it gives him a good excuse to hunt us down,” Erica mutters, and Stiles thinks she’s probably right. Not that Gerard needs an excuse to be a dangerous nutter. Maybe his redshirts where getting twitchy about hunting teenagers?

“Regardless,” Derek says, “we need to find out what’s going on and stop it, because things are difficult enough with hunters in town, without them thinking we’re attacking their cubs.”

Stiles doesn’t know whether to laugh or coo at the fact that Derek just described Allison as the Argents’ cub.

Stiles prepares to make notes. He pulls a notepad from his bag, and a packet of pens. Not just any pens, either. Sparkly gel pens. The werewolves all pull faces when he takes the cap of the green one and he mentally high-fives himself. He knew it had been worth spending the extra dollar on getting scented ones.

“So,” he says, arranging the notepad as best he can on his knees. “Who wants to kill Allison?”

The list turns out to be surprisingly long.

“Gerard might be doing it so he’s got an excuse to kill us,” Erica suggests. The girl has a suspicious mind.

“One of us might be doing it secretly,” Isaac suggests. “One of the pack I mean.” Isaac has an even more suspicious mind, but Stiles knows what the police found in the basement of his house, so it’s hardly surprising.

“No one has a proper motive,” Boyd complains.

“Sure they do. Loads of people. No offence Allison. But she’s the daughter of a famous hunter, Granddaughter of an even more famous hunter, niece of a psychopathic hunter, she’s dating a werewolf, she makes out with her boyfriend without checking first to see whose mind she’s scarring, she refuses to put in a good word for me with Lydia…” Stiles stops his list to exclaim, “Hey, I totally have a motive for killing her!”

“You could just rip her throat out though,” Derek points out. Stiles is kinda proud that Derek thinks he could do that. He totally couldn’t. He’d miss, or start giggling, or just feel really bad and stop before he did any damage.

“If she was eaten though, you’d totally know it was me. This way, no-one suspects!” Stiles argues, then realizes that everyone is staring at him again. He sighs. “I’m not trying to kill Allison,” he tells them, slightly hurt that he needs to say it.

“I know you’re not,” Allison says reassuringly. Maybe he won’t kill her after all. “And I’d like to point out that I’m right here.”

“Alright,” Erica says, turning to her with a frown (she totally resents that Allison is at least as badass as her without even trying). “Who do you think’s trying to kill you?”

“I don’t know,” Allison complains. “It seems stupid. No one has a reason to kill me, not really. I mean, we can come up with some really tenuous ones now it’s actually happening, but a week ago I bet none of you would have been able to think of a single one!”

Stiles stares down at his notepad, hardly seeing the hastily scribbled list of names. An idea is forming in his mind. Carefully and deliberately he writes, 1. Redshirt shot. 2. Cupcakes intended for Gerard’s party poisoned. 3. Chris’ brakes cut. He watches the words carefully, willing them to solve the problem. Then he sees it.

“No one’s trying to kill Allison!” he exclaims. Six pairs of eyes turn to him and he holds up his lime scented list. “No one’s trying to kill Allison,” he says again.

“But…” Scott begins but Stiles cuts him off.

“Stop thinking about it in terms of attacks on Allison, and just think about them as events. What’s actually happened? A redshirt has been shot. Cupcakes intended for the entire Argent clan have been poisoned. And the brakes were cut in Chis Argent’s car. They’re not trying to kill Allison, they’re trying to kill Argents. Any of them!”

“I knew no one would try and kill me!” Allison says happily and the rest of the group share a ‘well that must be nice for you’ look.

“So someone’s just trying to kill hunters,” Isaac says slowly. “That does make more sense. But who? I mean, surely only supernaturals have any motive, and we’re they only ones in town.”

“We weren’t though,” Stiles says slowly, his brain working even faster than usual.

“The Peuchens,” Derek says, obviously following his line of reasoning.

“There’ve been a load of new people in town recently,” Stiles says. “That big old house on South Street has been rented out, all the rooms taken. And the old guy who runs the motel said he’d never known it so busy. And they all arrived at the same time as Lyndsey. So maybe…”

“Maybe they’re supernaturals too!” Allison finishes.

“You know what this means?” Stiles asks. “It means we get to go undercover. I’ve always wanted to go undercover!”

“You’d be so bad undercover,” Isaac says scornfully, and Stiles nearly retorts by telling him just how good he would be but stops himself. He really isn’t comfortable with Derek’s pack (but mostly Derek) knowing about his magical sex change superpower. Which really needs a name.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this one's pathetically short, but hopefully the next chapter should be pretty long. And you've got a shopping montage, Lydia being awsome and the closest I will ever get to real angst to look forward to :)

“Okay, so why am I here?”

Allison is sitting on Stiles’ bed, making him acutely aware that it’s been a worrying amount of time since he changed his sheets. Which isn’t anything to do with the fact that they still smell faintly of Derek.

“I need you to help me learn to be a girl,” Stiles says, all in a rush. He can feel his face heating up as he says it.

Allison stares.

“Look, we need someone to get to know the new people, find out who they are and what they are, and I’m best equipped to do that without being found out. But first I need you to teach me how to be a girl.”

“Stiles, I appreciate you trying to help and all, but there’s no way…”

Her voice trails off as Stiles changes before her eyes.

“You can’t tell anyone about this,” Stiles says urgently. “I wouldn’t even have told Scott if I hadn’t forgotten to take my meds.”

“So this is another one of your Peuchen powers?” Allison asks. She’s taken a small step away from Stiles, the way she does from Scott when he transforms, but otherwise she seems simply a surprised.

“Yeah this is one of my new powers. I call it Transmorphia.”

“Better than Hadokken I suppose,” Allison said and then blushed when Stiles laughed. “I played games as a kid,” she adds defensively.

Stiles dismisses that for now (but it will definitely be brought up again later). There are more important things to deal with.

“Will you help me?”

“Of course I will. What girl clothes do you own already?”

“Erm… none?”

“Well what do you know about female grooming?”

“Jack squat.”

“Right… I think we’re going to need the big guns on this one.”

**oOOOo**

Stiles’ bedroom contains Lydia Martin. Lydia Martin is actually in his bedroom. She has her hands on her hips and she’s doing that frowny disapproving face that makes Stiles go weak at the knees. It’s very like the start of one of his less wholesome fantasies. Except for the bit where Allison is there and Stiles is a girl. Although he can work with that.

“This is…”

“Teklunia,” Stiles supplies.

“Right, of course. This is Teklunia. She’s Stiles’s cousin. And she needs clothes. Obviously. So I thought we could take her…”

Lydia raises one expressive eyebrow. “So she came all the way from Poland with only guy’s jeans?”

“Um… yes?”

“Need I remind you that I’m not stupid? In fact I’m probably the cleverest person you will ever meet? So why don’t you try again, bearing that in mind?”

Stiles sighs. “I would like to make it clear that I never thought you’d fall for this,” he says. “It was entirely Allison’s idea.”

Lydia frowns at him, trying to figure something out. That’s another expression that’s pretty high on his Lydia Martin fantasy list. Being turned on as a girl is weird. Less embarrassing though. “Stiles…?”

He can see Allison trying to think of something clever to say and he decides he just can’t take it. The girl might be second only to Hawkeye with a bow, but her lying to Lydia skills suck. Then again, Lydia Martin is a genius who loves gossip. Pretty much everyone’s lying to Lydia Martin skills suck. He closes his eyes and summons a spark of his power. When he opens then again, Lydia is staring at him in wide-eyed shock.

“Does my hair look any darker to you?”

Allison shakes her head. “Don’t think so.”

“Damn. I keep trying but so far the shape shifting seemed to be limited to the magical gender reassignment.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Lydia says, apparently having adjusted already to the revelation of Stiles’ powers. “I dread to think what trouble you’d get up to if you could disguise yourself as anyone. Nowhere would be safe.”

“Ha ha. Now are you taking me shopping or what?”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So I just wrote a shopping montage _and I'm not even ashamed!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm every bit as pro freedom of choice about body hair as I am about everything else, if girls want to stop shaving and boys want to start that's all fine with me. I just don't think Lydia Martin would feel the same way.
> 
> I indentify as androgene, and there are times when I really really hate being biologically female, but a lot of the time I love it, and I wanted Stiles to experience the nice stuff about being a girl. Hence the total soppiness of this chapter.

Buying his first bra turns out to be the most nerve-wracking experience of his life. He can’t help but feel jealous of girls for whom this is an exciting rite of passage, something special. For him it’s mostly just terrifying. His only consolation is that as long as he stays a girl, no one can tell how much trying on women’s underwear is turning him on. It doesn’t matter that he’s a girl, it still feels forbidden and kinda really hot.

The shop assistant is really nice and apparently doesn’t judge him when he admits that he doesn’t actually own a single bra. She just smiles and hands him a soft crop top thing to wear while she measures him. The numbers and letters she says to him mean nothing and it must show on his face because she smiles and says, “a bit smaller than average, but not so small that you won’t be able to find nice stuff.”

It’d never occurred to Stiles that breast size affected your choice when it came to bra shopping, and he’s hugely relieved that he’s not going to have to seek out specialist shops.

The nice shop assistant helps him pick out three bras, two slightly padded ones she explains are good for under t-shirts, one black, one white, and a black lace bra that is pretty much Stiles’ favorite thing he’s ever owned. The girl probably thinks he’s really mental given the amount of time he spends staring at his reflection when he puts it on, but she doesn’t let on. She just smiles and says, “Nothing makes you feel better than knowing you’re wearing sexy underwear.” She’s right.

The bras all come with free panties and he buys a couple more pairs because they have superheroes printed on them and he’s a total geek.

Lydia and Allison are waiting for him when he emerges from the shop. They’ve acquired drinks from somewhere and he nearly kisses Lydia when she hands him a slushie, at least four different colors of ice swirled together.

“I figured you’d want the maximum additives,” she says and he grins because yeah, he really doesn’t need any more energy but he fucking loves additives. “Also you look like you need cooling off.”

Stiles can feel the blush reaching his ears but he holds himself a little straighter and shrugs. “I’m fucking hot, okay?”

Allison giggles but Lydia just gives him an appraising look and says, “You certainly will be when we’re finished with you.”

He really didn’t need any more Lydia Martin fantasies but apparently his libido disagrees.

**oOOOo**

Eyebrow threading is a terrible terrible thing,

Stiles is lying back in a reclining chair while this really tiny, really energetic Indian woman pulls what feels like half his face off. In public. People Stiles doesn’t even know are walking past and laughing at his pain.

“You think this is bad, wait ‘till you get a bikini wax,” Lydia says from the chair next to him where she’s having God knows what does to her, because as far as Stiles can see her eye-brows are already fucking perfect.

Stiles goes to shake his head but stops when his tiny eye-brow threader, or whatever he’s supposed to call her, clucks angrily at him. “No. I’m tolerating this even though it’s going to make me look really weird,” (he doesn’t specify that it’s his male self who’ll look weird, Lydia will understand) “but no one is going anywhere near my crotch with hot wax.”

“You’ll have to shave then,” Lydia says and Stiles groans because he still cuts his face like all the time, he dreads to think how bad he’ll be at shaving his legs.

**oOOOo**

“Seriously?” he asks, because the skirt Lydia’s holding up looks short. And tight.

“Seriously,” she replies, and her tone broaches no argument. Stiles sighs and adds the skirt to the armful of clothes he’s already carrying.

They lost Allison somewhere around an outdoorsy shop that had crossbows in the window. Stiles is regretting not dragging her away. He could do with the moral support right now. Lydia is kinda a bully.

Lydia peers round the shop and Stiles really hopes she doesn’t spot anything else she thinks he needs to try - he’s going to collapse if she adds anything else to the pile in his arms.

“Trying on time!” she declares happily, and drags him towards the changing rooms.

She takes six items from him and goes in first, but even so he has to leave of load of stuff with the girl at the changing room entrance to try later, because apparently shops don’t let you take whole armfuls of stuff in with you. He had no idea, he’s not sure he’s ever actually bothered trying stuff on before. He knows what size he is, as a guy at least, so he just buys stuff he likes and that’s cheap. That is not how Lydia does clothes shopping.

She sits on the stool in the changing room opposite his and critiques each new item as he puts it on. It’s actually kind of an ego boost, despite being nerve wracking, because she keeps telling him how good he looks, even as she criticizes the clothes. He thinks this is probably her version of being supportive of his gender identity crisis, or whatever the hell she thinks this is.

**oOOOo**

They meet Allison again outside a coffee shop where they stop for a drink.

They find a table that allows them to watch the people walking past. Lydia criticizes their dress sense and Stiles makes up fantastical stories about what their lives are like. It’s the most comfortable he thinks he’s ever felt around someone who isn’t Scott. Being a girl is actually kind of awesome.

Eventually they get to discussing clothes, what he’s bought and what he hasn’t and what he still needs.

“You’re going to need a wig.”

“What? Why?” He actually likes his fuzz better on his girl self than on his normal self. He’s always had a secret thing for androgynous girls.

“Because it’s too distinctive.”

He pulls a face and Lydia says consolingly, “It’s cute Stiles. Very Natalie Portman. But the point of this is to disguise you and that fuzz is way too recognizable.”

In the end he gets two wigs, one a green bob and the other short and luridly pink. Lydia frowns a bit at them, but he tells her he’s channeling his inner Ramona Flowers and then giggles when she looks blank.

**oOOOo**

Picking out make-up turns out to great fun. It’s kinda like finger painting only nearly all the paints are pink. He tells Allison so and she pulls a face.

“It is the way you’re doing it,” she says. “We’re going to have to teach you how to do it properly.”

He sticks his tongue out at her and draws cat whiskers on her in eyebrow pencil when her guard’s down. They go all skewed from how her cheeks dimple when she smiles, but she still looks adorable. Stiles takes a picture on his phone to show Scott before she can wipe them off.

Lydia frowns and tells them they’re being childish, but Stiles knows that deep inside she’s laughing. Very very deep.

**oOOOo**

In the end he probably buys way more stuff that he actually needs, but he earned a bit of extra money last week, mowing people’s lawns, and he’s having so much fun he doesn’t care.

They go back to his house, and the girls show him how to put lipstick on without smudging it and how to do eyeliner and mascara without blinding himself, and then they make him put on a fashion show, trying on his new clothes in different combinations, and reveling in the compliments they give him.

He gets why girls might think being a girl sucks, he really does, but it’s also kind of amazing. Girls are so nice to their friends. Him and Scott are best friends, have been since they were tiny and will be until they die, but they don’t, like, say nice stuff to each other. That would be weird. But apparently girls think it’s totally normal to tell other girls that they look nice, or that they have great legs, and it’s pretty brilliant.

When they’ve finished he ends up in a denim mini skirt with bright purple tights and the biker boots that cost more than all his other shoes put together but which he loves, with a stripy top and a leather jacket. Lydia’d carefully done his make-up for him and the pink wig is seriously amazing, especially once Allison’s made it all spikey and punky with some hair gel Stiles didn’t even know he owned. He feels way too good to just stay at home.

“We should totally go out and celebrate my girlification,” he tells them, grinning so wide it feels like his face is going to split.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles celebrates his new look and has a teensy breakdown. IDEK
> 
> This has subtle hints of Stiles/Erica/Isaac. I really didn't intend to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have no idea where the hell this chapter came from except that I knew I had to get in a Stiles-realising-he-could-kill-everyone-he-loves moment and I've been reading a lot of Bandom fics
> 
> I kinda love this chapter and I love how Erica and Isaac turned out, but if you guys think it's massively OOC please tell me. This isn't how I had planned for this to go at all.

In the end Lydia and Allison don’t come out with him because Allison has psychotic parents and Lydia doesn’t believe in going out on school nights (and how is it Sunday already? This week has gone so quickly). Stiles doesn’t give a fuck about how awful he’ll feel tomorrow. He feels amazing and he looks amazing and he wants to dance, preferably to obnoxious teenage rock played loud enough to permanently damage his hearing.

The nearest venue that will have anything like what he’s after is a town over, and he’s used so much gas today, but he doesn’t care. Today he’s enjoying himself and telling the consequences to fuck of and die.

It’s a shitty place, not much more than a large shed with a PA system older than Stiles, but they don’t bother to ID anyone and they’ve generally got local unsigned bands playing badly and too loud.

The guy on the door doesn’t even look at him when he walks in, and Stiles wonders why they even bother paying him. Maybe they don’t, maybe he just likes sitting outside the door staring creepily at the people coming in. He certainly never breaks up any fights as far as Stiles knows. Things can get pretty rough and the management generally just lets it happen.

He buys himself an alcopop, some cheap rip-off brand that tastes more of blue coloring than fruit, not that Stiles cares. He actually likes cheap alcopops, and no one’s going to laugh at him for it for once.

He drinks it faster than he really should and pushes himself off the bar and into the crowd.

The band are a local punk outfit, their lyrics mostly just screamed obscenities and their drummer incapable of keeping time. Stiles doesn’t care.

He flings himself through the crowd, heading for the mosh pit at the front of the room. He can’t dance for shit, but anyone can mosh, and he likes the sweaty press of bodies.

He never makes it that far. Before he’s got halfway across the room, he runs up against a wall of werewolf. Metaphorically. And a little bit physically.

Erica and Isaac are together, just like they always are, and giving him their best ‘you’re a hot girl and we’re dangerous werewolves who maybe want to tag team you’ stares. Stiles is actually kinda flattered.

Then they catch on.

The look of shock on Erica’s face is hilarious, and Isaac’s bewilderment makes him look like he’s channeling Scott.

“Outside, now!” Erica yells, voice barely audible over the music, and Stiles wants to argue because he doesn’t want to talk, he wants to dance, but he’s pretty sure Erica won’t have any compunctions about hitting a girl, so he follows them outside.

They lean against the wall, around the corner from creepy door guy and not too close to the frantically rutting couples, and Erica produces a packet of cigarettes from somewhere inside her skintight top.

“Don’t tell Boyd,” she says as she lights up, and Stiles isn’t sure whether that’s directed at him or Isaac. He assumes Isaac since he hasn’t said more than about six words to Boyd since he got turned.

She takes a long drag, and Stiles tries not to squirm because smoking is gross and it gives you cancer but Erica can make pretty much anything sexy. He does squirm when Isaac leans in closer than even Stiles thinks is okay and sniffs at his neck.

“He’s not in drag,” Isaac says, and Stiles rolls his eyes because yeah, obviously. He wasn’t intending to tell them (or anyone) but if they’re going to know they might as well know the truth.

“It’s one of my new powers,” he tells them, only remembering afterwards that they might not know he’s not human any more.

Erica nods though and says, “Yeah, Derek said something about you being a supernatural now.”

There’s a long awkward silence where Isaac and Stiles both perv on Erica and try to pretend they’re not doing it. She knows, of course. Making guys hard at inappropriate moments is kinda her raison d’être, never mind that Stiles isn’t a guy right now.

“Are you hungry?”

When Stiles shoots them a questioning look, Isaac blushes. Erica of course doesn’t – he’s beginning to think that she’s unembarrassable.

“Derek told us you’re… well he said that if you ask, we’re to let you drink our blood.”

“And ickle Isaac’s been freaking out ever since.”

“I’m not freaking out! I just… I don’t want the hyperactive kid from my chemistry class to drink my blood. Is that so weird?”

“Yes,” Erica and Stiles say simultaneously, and then have an awkward moment when they want to grin at one another, or maybe high-five, but both feel their volatile history makes that inappropriate.

Stiles can smell the acrid tang of Isaac’s fear and adrenaline, even over the stick of Erica’s cigarette, and it occurs to him that it’s a _good_ smell. He takes a step closer without even meaning too.

“Did Derek tell you what I am now?” he asks, and he’s got no control over his mouth, he’s just saying everything that comes into his mind without bothering to filter. “Did he warn you that drinking blood is like decaf coffee because what I really want is too eat your flesh and then lick your bones clean?” He really really does too. “I want to tear open your rib cage and eat your living heart.”

Isaac is backed against the wall of the dive now, his fear obvious.

“Stiles,” a voice says, and Erica lays a tentative hand on his shoulder, and that’s enough to shake him out of the blood soaked haze he’d been inhabiting. He sits down hard, not caring that Isaac can probably see up his skirt, and wraps his arms around himself.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and fuck, he’s crying, big fat tears rolling down his cheeks and probably taking his eyeliner with it.

After a long moment he feels warm bodies settle either side of him. ‘Cos what he needed right now was so a reminder that he’s crying in front of werewolves. The contact is kinda nice though.

He barely hears Isaac’s apology, it’s so quiet, but he can hear from his voice that he’s blaming himself. Fuck, Stiles is so used to thinking of Erica and Isaac as a unit that he forgets, sometimes, that Isaac doesn’t have her fuck the world attitude. He feels things to deeply and he’s always ready to blame himself, even when it’s obviously someone else’s fault.

Stiles sniffles a bit and says, “So not your fault dude. It’s me who should be apologizing. Fuck, I’m a monster.”

There’s a moments silence and then leather clad arms slide around his shoulders.

“Yeah,” Erica says, “you are. It’s kinda hot though.”

Stiles shoots her a black look from between tear-stained lashes and she laughs.

“Hey, I’m a werewolf. We’re all about the power, and as I understand it, you could probably kill us all without taking a scratch yourself. That’s hot.” She winks and adds in an undertone, “and I know my Alpha agrees.”

That does actually makes Stiles feel a little better, because he’s a monster, but Derek Hale gets off on Stiles drinking his blood, and that’s awesome.

Erica reaches across him and produces an eyeliner and a tiny mirror from one of Isaac’s jacket pockets and hands them to Stiles.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” she says, in a tone that only an idiot would disobey. “You’re going to fix your make-up, and then drink some of my blood, and then we’re going to go back in and scandalize the hell out of those fuckers with our sexy three-way dancing.”

Stiles honestly cannot see a single problem with that plan.

He’s going for Erica’s wrist, but she pulls her arm back before he can grab it. “Fuck no,” she says. “If we’re doing this, you’re giving it to me in the neck. I’ve got about ten years of Anne Rice obsession to fulfill here.”

Isaac smells worried, but he laughs quietly, and Stiles wonders how he’s never before realized how awesome these two are.

The skin of Erica’s neck is soft and smooth and the most inviting thing he can ever remember seeing (except maybe topless Derek). He pushes her jacket aside and bites her where her neck meets her shoulder.

She makes a noise that definitely isn’t pain, and Stiles finds himself absently wondering whether all werewolves are masochists or only the awesome ones.

“Fuck,” she gasps when he starts to suck. “Fuck that’s good.”

Her head thuds back against the wall, but somehow she keeps talking. “You’re missing out baby boy.” Stiles would probably giggle at her pet-name for Isaac if a) he didn’t have his mouth full and b) she hadn’t said it with such affection. As far as Stiles is concerned, love is never funny. Love is awesome.

His breasts are pressing against Erica’s where he’s leaning against her and it’s kind of distracting.

“Was in love with you for so long,” Erica says, and Stiles realizes with a start that she’s talking to him. “You’re fucking pretty, you know that? You never even noticed me you fucker.”

Stiles thinks that’s probably his cue to stop. He pulls back and tries to ignore the way Erica shivers when he laps up the last few drops of blood that still cling to her now healing skin.

“Are you still…?” he asks. He probably shouldn’t, but he needs to know. He hates that he never spoke to Erica, never really noticed her. He knows how painful unrequited love can be.

Erica grins, and her teeth are closer to fangs than human teeth. “Nah, I got my baby boy now. You’re still fucking pretty though. You make a hot girl.”

“You really do,” Isaac agrees and wow, apart from that whole realizing he’s a monster who wants to kill people bit, today has been _awesome_.

There’s not much light, but Stiles manages to get his eyeliner at least fixed enough that he doesn’t look like he’s been crying. That’s good enough. There’s one last thing he has to do before they go back in.

“I’m sorry man,” he says, hoping Isaac can see how sincere he is. “I’m so fucking sorry for freaking you out like that.”

Isaac shakes his head and gives him a small sweet smile. “It’s fine. It’s not like I don’t get the whole burning bloodlust thing.”

Erica slings an arm around his shoulders. “It totally wasn’t your fault. Isaac smells amazing when he’s scared.”

Stiles officially loves Erica. And Isaac. And actually werewolves in general because they’re awesome and hot and let him drink their blood.

He ends the night on the dance-floor, as close to the front as you can get without being moshed at, with Erica pressed up against his front and Isaac plastered against his back and that’s nearly enough to make him forget that he’s a monster.

As Erica predicted, they draw a lot of strange looks, but Stiles doesn’t give a fuck. The music is pounding through him, he can still taste Erica’s blood in his mouth, and there are two hot bodies pressed right into his personal space. He can’t think of a better way to spend the night.


	13. Chapter 13

The next morning is distinctly un-awesome. Stiles wakes with his head pounding and flashing lights dancing in front of his eyes. It’s not a hangover, or at least he doesn’t think so, since he’s pretty sure he’s at least as immune to alcohol as werewolves. It’s just the after effects of loud music and a late night.

He forces himself into the shower, despite the way the water makes his head throb, and throws on the first clothes that come to hand.

It’s only when he gets downstairs that he remembers that it’s his dad’s day off, which means he has to eat actual human food for breakfast, which he has a hard enough time keeping down when he’s not feeling like shit. He makes himself pop-tarts and ignores his dad’s disapproving look. There’s no way he can stomach anything that isn’t either some kind of dead animal, or at least 90% sugar. And since his dad’s watching, he’s going with the sugar.

“You got in pretty late last night,” his dad says, in his best ‘I’m not prying I’m just making small talk’ voice.

“Yeah, sorry if I woke you. I went out with some friends.”

His dad raises his eyebrows (that lie would have been so much more convincing if Stiles had more friends) and just says, “I was awake. Going over some files.”

“Dad, you need to start getting to bed earlier. It’s not good for you, not sleeping.”

“Says you.”

“I’m a teenager. I’m supposed to stay up ‘till ungodly hours.”

“Not on school nights you’re not.”

If his dad were any other parent, he’d probably ground him, but his dad is awesome and chilled and also learnt years ago that forbidding Stiles to do pretty much anything is a stupid idea, so he just sighs.

Stiles glances at the clock, and shoves the last of his pop-tart into his mouth. “Gotta go dad. I’ll see you later.”

He’s nearly out of the door when his dad calls, “By the way Stiles, you’ve got lipstick on your face.”

Fuck.

**oOOOo**

School is, frankly, awkward. Scott keeps giving him weird looks that suggest he might still smell of Isaac and Erica, but won’t actually come out and ask. And Stiles isn’t going to call him on it, because what if that isn’t what’s up and then they have to have a really uncomfortable conversation?

He’s going to go and say hi to Erica and Isaac at lunch, but as he gets close Erica whispers something in Isaac’s ear and Isaac looks straight at him and blushes to his roots. Stiles decides keeping out of whatever weird sex game they’re playing will probably be good for his headache.

He ends up sitting between Scott and Allison and trying to ignore the way they make eyes at each other all lunch. They’re currently in an ‘allowed to speak but not allowed to actually touch’ phase of their relationship, which leaves Stiles feeling uncomfortably like he’s cockblocking his best mate.

Jackson smirks at him in an even more dickish way than usual when he sees him and Stiles can’t work out why until Danny pulls him aside to warn him that he’s still got the smudged remains of yesterday’s eye make-up on. He doesn’t even smile as he says it, and Stiles is reminded yet again of why everyone loves Danny.

Lydia actually smiles at him when he comes into math class, which is pretty awesome. She doesn’t do anything ridiculous like speak to him, but just acknowledging his existence is a massive step up and Stiles has been a social outcast long enough to know that when you’re the irritating kid with ADHD you should take what you can get. (And alright, maybe Lydia’s Queen Bee status has been a little shaky since she got attacked by Peter Hale and woke up with a massively scar on her side.)

Thinking about his own unpopularity brings up uncomfortable memories of Erica’s confession from last night. Someone had liked him and he’d ignored them. The guilt those thoughts cause really don’t help his headache.

Stiles closes his eyes and promises himself that, as soon as school is over, he’s going to focus all his attention on solving their current monster problem. Maybe if he tries hard enough he’ll stop feeling so guilty.

**oOOOo**

It actually turns out to be pretty easy to infiltrate the suspect’s base. After school he changes into his girl gear and hangs around in the grocery store until one of them comes in to get some shopping. Not his cleverest plan ever, but it works.

He manages to strike up a conversation with the girl (her name is Joe) in the frozen foods aisle, and by the time they get to the dairy section he’s got an invitation to a house party they’re throwing to celebrate moving in. Alright it’s not the sneakiest infiltration ever, but it’s an in and it didn’t involve anyone being tortured or him breaking any laws or anything. In his book, that’s definitely a win.

The party isn’t until the weekend, which means he gets a week of stressing over it to add to the usual hell of school, ADHD, being a dark creature, Scott and Allison eye-fucking and Derek not talking to him. Actually, that last one is probably worrying him the most.

“Dude, I’ve texted Derek like twenty times,” (forty-three actually, not that he’s counting) “and he hasn’t replied to one of them.”

Scott doesn’t even have the decency to take his eyes of Allison when he replies. “Why do you think I’d know what’s going on? We’re cooperating over this because Allison’s in danger but that doesn’t mean I like the guy. It’s not like we hang out.”

Personally Stiles thinks Scott is excessively bitter. Alright, Derek’s done some seriously dodgy stuff, but on the other hand, they’ve twice framed him for murder. Swings and roundabouts.

He braves Erica’s leer and Isaac’s blushes to ask them. Erica rolls her eyes. “You’re not the only one. He broke Isaac’s nose last time we saw him. I think he’s pissed we went clubbing without him or something.”

Stiles suspects it has more to do with the blood-drinking and he thinks Erica knows that.

“Are all Alphas this bad at talking about their feelings do you think?” he asks absently, and Erica laughs.

“I think Derek is a bit special,” she says. “You should probably talk to him.”

“Nothing to talk about.”

“Apart from the fact that you’re madly in love with him and he throws a hissy fit when you touch anyone else.”

Put like that is sounds much worse that it is. “I’m not in love with him. Just, you know, he’s a bit gorgeous.”

Erica raises a single eyebrow and Stiles regrets, as he always does, that he can’t do that. When he tries, both eyebrows move and he ends up looking really surprised.

“And maybe I want to hug him until he stops thinking he’s all alone.”

Isaac makes an amused noise. “I’m not sure hugs are really Derek’s style, but I’d love to see you try.”

Stiles needs new friends.

**oOOOo**

Derek finally speaks to him on the night of the party. His dad is working so he doesn’t have to worry about anyone walking in while he gets ready, so he’s sitting on his bed in jeans and a bra while he does the best he can with his make-up. Allison had assured him it was a matter of practice, but Stiles suspects he’s just naturally shit at it.

He ends up with a smear of purple down his cheek when Derek decides to break into his room just as Stiles is applying eye shadow.

He yelps when the Alpha’s boots thump onto his carpet and then belatedly realizes what he’s wearing. Derek is just staring.

Stiles scrambles for a top (and wonders if it’s good or bad that Derek was definitely staring at his tits). He and Derek are both blushing when he’s finally dressed, so Stiles decides to ignore how uncomfortable this all is and just concentrate on business.

“Told you I had the best disguise,” he says, and Derek makes a tiny noise that could be acknowledgement or annoyance or just confusion.

There’s the sort of awkward silence Stiles can’t bear then, the kind he just has to fill with inane chatter.

“So I’m going to a thing tonight. Like a house party kind of thing, at that big house on the edge of town that’s being rented out. So, you know, maybe I’ll get some useful intel. I met one of them, the potentially murderous strangers I mean, in the grocery store and she invited me. Her name’s Joe and she’s tiny and blonde. Like, so not evil looking. But then if everyone evil looked evil it wouldn’t exactly be hard to, like, thwart them.”

“You’re not going alone,” Derek says. He’s scowling, but Stiles recognizes it as one of his general, all-purpose scowls, rather than an expression of genuine annoyance.

“Yeah dude, I am. Who do you suggest I take? Scott? You? No way, man.” Although the image of Derek at a house party is kind of hilarious. “I mean, one of the girls from the Pink Pussycat Club might come, but drag queens aren’t exactly low profile. And how would I explain being a girl to them? It’s not like…”

“Stiles,” Derek interrupts, more than a hint of a growl in his tone, “you will take Erica and Isaac. You’ve already been seen with them after all.”

There’s a malicious glint to Derek’s scowl that suggests he is entirely aware of how uncomfortable Erica is going to try and make Stiles. He just wishes he knew for sure what he’s done to annoy Derek so much. (He’s got his suspicions, but no way is he caving and admitting to their doomed love before Derek does.)


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Katt for doing a quick yank-pick. Apart from that this is currently unbeta'd, though it will get fixed up when the others do
> 
> Can someone tell my the html code for putting in a proper neat line as a page break? All those *****s look messy.

It’s Joe who opens the door when they arrive. She gives him a bright smile.

“Teklunia, right? And…?”

“This is Erica and Isaac,” Stiles says, gesturing to the werewolves. “They’re…”

“Her dates,” Erica says, wrapping her arms around Stiles’ waist.

Isaac doesn’t speak, but Stiles just knows he’s smirking.

“Oh, um, well it’s nice to meet you. I’m Joe. Come on in, I’ll find you a drink.”

They trail her into a large modern kitchen, where the sides are lined with bottles.

“You got any preferences?” she asks and Isaac shakes his head before Stiles can speak.

“We’ll drink whatever,” he says. “Not fussy.”

Joe nods and begins pouring drinks, asking as she does so, “so, um, like…” She blushes and tries again. “How did you three, like, get together?”

Erica grins and Stiles wishes, not for the first time, that his friends weren’t all mental. He needs to start socializing with people who aren’t either drag queens or werewolves.

“Oh me and Teklunia had this whole epic doomed love thing going on,” Erica’s saying. “Eyes across a crowded locker room and all that. It took her months to finally pluck up the courage to ask me out.” She grins at Stiles and it’s half affectionate, half malicious. “Of course,” Erica adds, “she kinda freaked when I told her yes but me and Isaac come as a unit.”

Isaac’s grin is nearly as wicked as Erica’s and it’s terrifying, but also nice to see. Isaac’s had a lot of shit to deal with over the years, it’s good that he’s starting to relax and enjoy life.

“Me and Erica are… kind of related. Not in a going to have three headed babies kind of a way, just a known each other all our lives sort of a way. We’re kind of a package deal. Lucky for us, Teklunia doesn’t mind.”

Stiles would really quite like for the ground to open up and swallow him. Bad enough that Joe thinks he’s in a three way relationship with them (which, no, they’re hot but Erica intimidates the fuck out of him) now she thinks he’s got some kind of fucked up incest kink going on.

He doesn’t remember ever being more grateful for a drink than the one Joe hands him. Until he takes a sip.

He pulls a face and puts down the cup.

“You okay?” Joe asks, worriedly.

“Fine, I just really hate coconut. Sorry. I should have said.”

“No, no, it’s my fault. I should have checked. I’ll get you something else. Vodka and Coke okay?”

“Yeah, brilliant, thanks.”

He can’t help but think that they must be wrong. There’s no way this pretty, kind girl could be plotting a murder.

**oOOOo**

Stiles loves dancing. He’s not actually any good at it, but there’s something about just giving himself over to the music that’s calming. Like when he’s dancing, he doesn’t feel so much like he’s going to vibrate out of his own skin.

Candy says he looks like he’s having a religious experience when he dances, though Cocoa says it looks more like an orgasm. Either way, they spend their spare time trying to persuade him to come and dance at the club. So far he’s resisted, though the idea seems a lot more appealing now he knows how much he likes wearing women’s clothes. He giggles at the image of himself as a drag queen. It’s really not his style.

The music’s really not his style either, some hip-hop type thing, but it doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that the beat is strong enough that he can give up control to it. Most people are just standing around holding drinks and trying to talk over the racket, but enough people are dancing that he’s not attracting any attention. Well, not more than a hot dancing girl with green hair would usually attract.

Isaac presses against him from behind, his dancing definitely not family friendly. He’s pretty damn sure that isn’t a gun in Isaac’s pocket either, because what would a werewolf need a gun for?

“Uh, Isaac…?” He manages no to sound quite as freaked out as he sounds when he says it, for which he is grateful.

“Yeah,” Isaac says, “I had noticed.”

That wasn’t actually what Stiles had meant.

“Oh don’t look so worried,” Erica says, peeling away from the guy she’d been groping and stepping up to drop a kiss on the tip of Stiles’ nose. It’s shockingly intimate. “We won’t do anything you don’t want us too, you know that.”

He does, though he’s not entirely sure it’s reassuring. He’s seventeen and they’re hot and willing – he’s probably not the best judge of what’s a good idea in situations like this.

They’re attracting more than a few startled glances. Erica grins at him, wide and wolfish, and Stiles tries to ignore the squirmy hot feeling in his gut. He has no idea if he liked being looked at before he was turned, no one had ever looked at him. Well except Cocoa, and that didn’t really count. She was just messing around.

“I, er, it’s hot. Want to get a drink?” he manages to squeak, trying to will away the blush he can feel rising up his neck.

It might just be his imagination, but it looks suspiciously like Erica tips her head back just a little to expose her throat when he says that. He does his best to ignore her, though he knows from her delighted giggle that he’s not being as subtle as he hoped.

**oOOOo**

They sit on battered deck chairs in the garden and drink warm weak bear from plastic cups.

“You noticed anything suspicious?” he asks.

Isaac shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Everyone smells human. There’s something though… But it might just be my imagination.”

“No,” Erica says, “I noticed it too. Something… wrong.” She shrugs. “It’s hard to put smells into words.”

Stiles hadn’t smelt it, but while his sense of smell is sharp, he doesn’t rely on it the way the wolves do. Even in human form, he’s noticed, they map the world through scent in a way that doesn’t make sense to him.

They sit in silence for a bit, Stiles’ mind buzzing with half formed ideas and questions on top of the usual background noise of his brain.

Eventually Erica sighs. “Just say it,” she says. “Whatever it is you’re worrying about. You know you can ask us anything, we won’t freak.”

“It’s nothing important,” Stiles says, the blush making an unwelcome return. “I was just wondering… did getting turned change, like, what turns you on and stuff?” His face is hot and he can’t bring himself to meet either of their eyes.

“No,” Isaac says, at the exact same time as Erica says, “Obviously.”

Stiles looks at them and Isaac blushes. “It’s just, by the time I got the bite, I was already irredeemably fucked up,” he mutters.

Erica pulls him into a deep kiss and Stiles wonders what the kind of abuse his dad suspected, but couldn’t prove, had been going on in the Lahey household would do to a person. Nothing good, that’s for damn sure.

“Being turned changed me,” Erica says, “But then that’s hardly surprising. My whole perception of the world is different now. That’s gonna change you. Though I suspect you were an exhibitionist before the bite,” she adds, and Stiles considers just running away, because he had no idea he was being that obvious.

“We’re gonna go dance some more,” Erica says, taking Isaac’s hand and pulling him to his feet. “You coming?”

Stiles shakes his head. “Nah, I’m just going to sit here and die of embarrassment.”

Erica’s laughter is warm and clear and not unkind.

**oOOOo**

Stiles is unusually still and quiet, trying to figure out the why of the attacks on the Argents, which is probably why they don’t see him.

He doesn’t know their names, but he does know that they’re renting rooms in the house. They’re also very drunk.

“We’ve gotta give up, man,” the small man with the mousy hair says. “It’s a stupid fucking idea. I _told_ you it was a stupid fucking idea, but you wouldn’t listen! You always think you know better. Well I’ve had enough. I’m out! You can…” he sways and nearly ends up in a rose bush. “You can fucking… fucking do it without me, you hear!”

The taller man is more stable on his feet, but no less drunk. “My fault? My fault?! You’re the one who took Jesse out that night. If you hadn’t made him… If you hadn’t made him go out with you, he’d still be here! This is all your fucking fault. You killed him man, you know that? You fucking killed Jesse.”

“You… you… you take that back, you cunt! It’s not my fault your brother was a fucking… fucking mutant! Not my fault your mum fucks around dude!”

The fight that followed was short and would have been brutal if the combatants weren’t too drunk to do any real damage. After a couple of minutes scuffling, they end up in a panting heap.

“’m… ‘m sorry man. That was… that was out of line.”

“Nah. Nah man, it’s fine. It’s all good.”

The mousy haired man shakes his head hard, then groans like that hadn’t been a good idea. “No man, it’s not… not good. Your mom’s not a slut. Your mom’s a lovely lady. Like… classy and shit.”

“Damn right.”

“And… and it’s not anyone’s fault that Jesse’s dead except the mad bastard who killed him, right? Like… no one made that guy shoot him. We couldn’t have known, man.” He shakes his head again, though more gently this time. “We couldn’t have known.”

Stiles is hoping for more, because the conversation is interesting, but not _proof_ , but Joe appears, considerably more sober than her house mates, and sighs at them, like maybe this isn’t the first time this has happened.

“Jooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooe,” mousy cries, rolling over to stare up at her. “Lovely lovely Joe. You are a classy lady.”

“And you’re wasted,” she replies. “Spence, take him to bed, would you?”

It takes them several attempts, but eventually mousy and Spencer make it too their feet and stagger inside.

Joe comes and takes a seat beside Stiles. “Okay?” she asks.

Stiles nods.

“Your… friends left you all alone?”

“Oh, they’re around somewhere,” Stiles says airily.

“In the living room, basically fucking on the couch,” Joe says, and Stiles nods again. That sounds likely.

“They do that. Throw a bucket of water over them or something. They’ve got no shame.”

Joe laughs. “It’s fine. Not like it’s the worst thing that’s happened to that couch tonight.” Stiles doesn’t want to know. “What’re you doing?”

“Thinking deep thoughts,” Stiles says, gesturing vaguely with his beer. It’s occurred to him that it wouldn’t do any harm to let people think he’s drunk.

“Philosophical drunk,” Joe notes. “Lucky you. I just get, like, all giggly. What’re you thinking deep shit about then?”

“Oh, um, Batman.”

She raises her eyebrows, and Stiles remembers too late that he no longer looks like a stereotypical nerd. It’s cool though, he can improve the reputation of nerds while he hunts for clues.

“Like, Batman never killed anyone, right? Or like, he did, but he didn’t mean too. That was his thing. Like, Wolverine? Wolverine kills fucking loads of people. But Batman never does. And that seems kinda fucked up, you know? Like he keeps getting the Joker and Mr Freeze and people put in jail, or, like, Arkham. And they keep breaking out. And then they go back to doing, like, bad shit. Whereas if he killed them, then they couldn’t do that stuff anymore. You know?”

Joe nods excitedly. “Yeah,” she says, “yeah exactly. Like, people go to jail, and then six months later they’re, like, let out for good behavior and shit. And then they go back to murdering people. It’s fucked up, man.”

Stiles sends a mental apology to his dad for this whole conversation.

“And then,” Joe says, “there’s all those criminals that, like, the police can’t touch. Like, fucking mob bosses. And people who murder people but cover it up.” Like the Argents, Stiles thinks. “The only way to, like, bring those guys to justice, is, like, vigilantism.”

There’s the fervor of a true convert in her eyes, and Stiles thinks that he might not have proof, but he’s definitely got reasonable grounds for suspicion.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another filler chapter (sorry). Stuff will start actually happening again in the next chapter, I promise x

By 2am, the party has got smaller, tiredness and homemade punch weeding out the weak, but no quieter. The music has changed to what Stiles recognizes (despite his hatred of Naruto meaning he can’t call himself a true Otaku) as bad J-Pop, played at a volume that would make him wince if he wasn’t quite so hyped up on additives and his own cleverness.

He and Erica are dancing on the dining table, laughing at one another, and ignoring the whistles and stares they’re attracting.

Isaac can’t be drunk, he’s a werewolf after all, but he’s doing a very good impression of it, sprawling on a sofa heckling and cat-calling them. After the third time he demands they take their tops off, Stiles half climbs, half falls, off the table and slaps him. It makes him feel like a Southern Belle in a Western, so he does it again.

Isaac grins up at him and says, “You hit like a girl.”

Before Stiles can do anything stupid, like prove him wrong (because shoving Isaac to the floor and taking a chunk out of his throat is a terrible idea, whatever his libido says), the party is broken up by the arrival of the first police. With Stiles’ typical terrible luck, the patrol car that pulls up outside is his dad’s.

Stiles is left with only two options. Let his dad catch him as a girl, or let his dad catch him dressed as a girl. At least everyone who isn’t a werewolf is too drunk to notice that Stiles’ bra suddenly isn’t nearly as full as it was.

“This isn’t as bad as it looks,” he starts, when his dad sees him.

“You’re wearing a mini-skirt,” is the Sherriff’s flat response.

“Yeah, but there’s totally a good reason for it. Which I will think of really soon. Just give me a minute.”

He probably could have convinced his dad that this was some kind of harmless joke, if Spencer, who’d reappeared after putting mousy to bed, hadn’t chosen that moment to fall against Stiles’ shoulder and ask, “So are you fucking the blonde chick or the guy with the hair?”

Erica (who naturally is standing close enough to hear and embarrass Stiles) says cheerfully, “Both, of course,” and kisses him.

**oOOOo**

“So who were those two?” his dad asks, his tone deceptively mild. The kiss had been obviously for show, smacking and ridiculous, but his dad’s eyebrows had still disappeared into his hairline with shock. Also Isaac might have whispered in Stiles’ ear, loud enough for his dad to hear, that Stiles looked good in women’s clothes. He doesn’t blame them, if it was happening to anyone else he’d think it was hilarious, but his dad worries about Stiles more than enough already.

He’s sitting beside his dad in his patrol car, being given a lift home whether he wants one or not.

“They’re just friends.”

“Son, last time I checked you didn’t have any friends except Scott.” That’s mean but also, until recently, true.

“They’re new friends. They’re really nice, they were just messing around.”

His dad makes a small disbelieving noise, and says, “I think the guy meant it when he said you looked hot.”

Stiles is going to have a heart attack and die in his dad’s car, and it’ll all be Isaac’s fault. He can’t remember why he used to think Isaac was so awesome.

“He was just dicking around, dad. Him and Erica are together.”

There’s an awkward silence and then his dad says, “I know you’re bi, Stiles, but seriously. Both at once?”

Yep, definitely going to have a heart attack.

“Dad, I’m not…”

“A bisexual crossdresser with two lovers?”

“I’m not with Isaac and Erica, dad, I swear. They’re just friends.”

His dad looks sideways at him. “You know I don’t care, right son? I love you, I always will. Even if you want to dress up in miniskirts.”

Stiles honestly can’t think of a denial that won’t raise even more questions, so he gives in and goes with the lie.

“It’s not, like, all the time,” he says. “And I don’t want to be a girl or anything.”

His dad lets out a relieved sigh and Stiles realizes with a jolt that his dad had been preparing to be there for him while Stiles changed sex if necessary. His dad is so amazing.

“Girls get way better clothes than guys,” he says, because he can’t think of anything else to say. His dad deserves an explanation, even if what he’s explaining is mostly a lie (mostly, ‘cos Stiles does kinda like wearing girl’s clothes and he might possibly start wearing panties as a guy sometimes).

“I just worry about you,” his dad says, and he sounds really tired. “I worry about you all the time, and if wearing a skirt makes you happy then I will support you all the way, but you know you’re basically just giving the kids at school another reason to pick on you?”

“Yeah, I know dad. But I can’t stop living my life just because teenagers are dicks.”

Beacon Hills is a small town, and the kids at school have small town attitudes. They don’t like different, and Stiles, with his constant vibrating energy and tendency to say whatever comes into his head, is a perfect target. He’s so going to wear a skirt to school now, even if he will get beaten up.

**oOOOo**

**I’mNotAFuckingDragQueen:** Hey

 **I’mNotAFuckingDragQueen:** Scott

**I’mNotAFuckingDragQueen:** Scott

**I’mNotAFuckingDragQueen:** Scott

**I’mNotAFuckingDragQueen:** Scott

**I’mNotAFuckingDragQueen:** Scott

**WolfyMcWolferson:** Fuck off Stiles. I was asleep.

**I’mNotAFuckingDragQueen:** But you’re not anymore. So you have to talk to me.

**I’mNotAFuckingDragQueen:** plus if you didn’t want me to wake up you should have turned your computer off

**WolfyMcWolferson:** I had a download running

**WolfyMcWolferson has changed their name to INeedNewFriends**

**I’mNotAFuckingDragQueen:** haha. Very funny. I’ve been out risking my life you realize?

**I’mNotAFuckingDragQueen:** Infiltrating the enemy base

**INeedNewFriends:** Dude, you went to a party

**I’mNotAFuckingDragQueen:** an enemy party. In the enemy base.

**INeedNewFriends:** Stiles we don’t even know if they ARE the enemy

**I’mNotAFuckingDragQueen:** yeah we do dude. They’re definitely the ones who’ve been attacking the Argents

**INeedNewFriends:** You found proof??????????

**I’mNotAFuckingDragQueen:** Not yet dude. I’m sure it’s them though. I just need a way to prove it.

**INeedNewFriends:** Fuck.

**INeedNewFriends:** we’re never going to convince Gerard it isn’t us

**I’mNotAFuckingDragQueen:** have some faith dude. I’ll find it

**I’mNotAFuckingDragQueen:** At least we know where we’re looking, now

**INeedNewFriends:** I suppose

**INeedNewFriends:** btw dude, could you change your name?

**INeedNewFriends:** I left a convo window open and my mom freaked when she saw it

**I’mNotAFuckingDragQueen:** What kind of n00b lets their mom near their computer?

**I’mNotAFuckingDragQueen:** also you have no appreciation of good cinema

**I’mNotAFuckingDragQueen has changed their name to RavenDarkholme**

**INeedNewFriends:** And you say my taste in films is bad

**RavenDarkholme:** First Class is the best of the X-Men films dude. Just because you feel weird perving on baby Mystique doesn’t diminish its greatness

**RavenDarkholme:** Fassbender and McAvoy dude. You can’t argue with that shit

**INeedNewFriends:** It is way too late for this argument

**INeedNewFriends:** I’m going back to bed. I’m glad you’re okay

**INeedNewFriends:** you should let Derek know. He’ll be worried

**INeedNewFriends is now offline**


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This get heavy and Derek volunteers to do his bit for Peuchen-kind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to get this out, I'm back at uni, and my muse is being flaky. But rest-assured, this isn't abandoned.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment on this, it means a lot x
> 
> Kinda sorry about posting this, cos the fic currently has 333 kudos and 33 comments. Still, I like comments more the symmetry, lolol

“Well this is awkward,” Stiles says, when Derek steps out of the darkness. “We really should have called one another first to make sure we didn’t come out wearing the same thing.” Although to be fair, Derek had had the leather jacket and boots look first.

“What are you doing here Stiles?” Derek growls, totally ignoring Stiles’ attempt at a joke.

“Well I heard there was a door to Narnia here,” Stiles says, pushing his hands into his pockets as best he can. Stupid girl pants with their tiny girl pockets. “I’m here to break in and find clues, dumbass, same as you.”

“No you’re not. Go home Stiles.” Derek’s wearing his most aggressive scowl, like he thinks that will in anyway deter Stiles.

“Dude, the whole ‘you’re a weak human who needs protecting’ thing doesn’t really work now I’m not human.”

“But the ‘Stiles go home you’re seventeen and have no experience with breaking and entering’ does.”

“And you do? Actually no, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. I need to maintain plausible deniability in case my dad ever asks.”

“Go home Stiles.”

“No.”

Derek might have been going to argue (or maybe just hit him) but they’re interrupted by the sound of a gun firing, and Derek falls to his knees, clutching his shoulder.

Stiles drops to his knees beside him, trying to push his hands aside to look at the wound, when the second bullet catches him in the arm.

There are long moments of agonizing pain, the world around him a mere blur, everything secondary to the fire of his injured arm, then everything goes black.

**oOOOo**

The first thing Stiles is aware of, even before he comes round fully, is the cold.

When he opens his eyes, he finds he’s in what looks like a cellar, half sitting, half lying, on the concrete floor, one wrist handcuffed to a pipe that sticks out of the wall behind him. Opposite him, chained far more securely, is Derek. The room is dark, but the air is thick with the sweet fresh scent of wolfsbane.

“If this was a film,” Stiles says, “then the bad guy would come in now, tell us all his plans, then do something stupid which allowed us to escape.”

“This isn’t a film,” Derek replies.

Stiles can see the moment he opens his eyes, the irises burning red in the darkness.

Stiles remembers the last time Derek had been captured, remembers that he’d been tortured by someone he’d once loved, and says as firmly as he can, “We’re going to get out of here.”

The red glow vanishes, Derek closing his eyes presumably, and he says in a strained voice, “There’s no guarantee of that.”

“There’s no guarantee of anything,” Stiles says. “Fucking quantum. But we _will_ get out of here. We have to.” He knows Derek can hear the fear in his voice, but he tries again and he sounds a little more sure at least. “We have to.”

He tries not to think of what will happen if they don’t – his dad never knowing what had happened to his son, Erica Isaac and Boyd once again alone, without an Alpha to unite them.

“We have to,” a soft voice repeats, and it takes Stiles a minute to realize it’s Derek, not him, who’d spoken.

There’s silence, then a twinge of pain reminds Stiles that they’ve both been hurt, and only one of them is immune to wolfsbane.

“Are you healing?” he asks, peering round the room for the source of the scent. “Fucking Wolfsbane. We should fucking make it extinct or something.”

“Not healing,” Derek says, and now Stiles can hear the strain in his voice. “Not dying either.”

“I suppose technically that could be classed as good news,” Stiles says, trying to find some hope in their hopeless situation.

“You?” Derek asks. Pain doesn’t make him anymore talkative.

“Hurts, but I’m pretty sure it’s healing. Though I think the bullet might still be in there, which sucks. Not looking forward to having to cut it out later.”

“Can you get to it?” Derek asks, ruby glow reappearing as he stares at Stiles. There’s something strangely comforting about it, seeing an Alpha watching him. Knowing that, however fucked they might be, he has a powerful ally.

Stiles tests it, reaching for the wound. It’s awkward, and means twisting his torso in a way that makes his neck and shoulders scream, but he can touch his fingers to the wound. “Yeah,” he says. “You think…?”

“Get it out,” Derek growls. “Need you strong.”

Stiles tells himself that Derek is right, that if they’re to get out of this they need him at his best and that isn’t him with a fucking bullet lodged in his arm. He closes his eyes and takes deep slow breaths, just like his therapist had taught him, as his probing fingers touch the edge of the wound, already crusty with hard lumps of drying blood.

He can hear his blood thundering in his ears and he knows his breathing is getting faster, more panicked, he can’t calm himself. There’s no possible way he can do this and be calm at the same time.

It takes him three goes, but at last he makes himself push his fingers into his flesh, gritting his teeth as he tears away half healed skin. His vision whites with the pain when he touches the bullet and he has to stop, pull back. He’s vaguely aware of having yelled or screamed, the echo of the noise ringing in his ears, but he’s floating now, light-headed with adrenaline.

He pushes his finger back into the wound, thinking hysterically that it feels disturbingly like putting a finger inside himself, and wow this is going to put a crimp in his special Stiles appreciation time for months. Possibly years.

He can feel the bullet under his finger, the metal slick with blood and warm from his body, and he groans as he realizes he’s going to need two fingers to get it out.

This time he does scream, long and loud, but he gets the edges of his nails on the impacted lead, finding purchase on the dips where the metal had crumpled as it entered his body. The noise he makes as he tugs it free isn’t a scream, it’s something more primal than that, filled with pain and rage and hate, so much hate. It’s a promise that the people who did this to him will pay.

He falls into a fitful doze, the strain of healing the bullet wound in his arm exhausting him enough to sleep despite the cold. The red glow of Derek’s glare soothes him, lets him believe, for a moment at least, that someone is watching over him. That he’s safe.

  
**oOOOo ******

 

He’s jerked awake by the door at the top of the cellar steps banging open. Two men come down them, the light streaming through the doorway behind them backlighting them like the heroes of a bad action film, balaclavas covering their faces. One is carrying a tray with sandwiches and cups of water on it, the other covering him with a gun.

“You check the werewolf,” the one with the sandwiches says to his companion, once they’re in the room. “I’ll see to the other guy.”

Stiles considers pretending unconsciousness, but he thinks they’ve probably seen him watching them, and like Derek said, this isn’t a film. They’re not going to be wearing the key to the handcuffs on their belts, easy for anyone to take. For all he knows, they haven’t even got keys for the handcuffs.

“Hey,” the guy says, crouching in front of him, and Stiles realizes with a shock that it’s mousy. Not some nameless (alright, kinda), faceless stranger, but someone he’s met, someone he’s drunk with. Somehow that makes it worse. “I’m really sorry about this.”

“If you’re sorry, let us go,” Stiles retorts. He should probably be trying to reason with them, or make some kind of deal, but he’s angrier than he ever remembers being and he’s not feeling very rational.

“We can’t,” mousy says, and he sounds genuinely contrite. “Not yet.”

“Not yet,” Derek repeats from across the room, and anyone who didn’t know him would think his voice was flat, dead, but Stiles can hear the hope in it.

“Yeah,” the guy tending to Derek says, and Stiles thinks it’s Spencer. Fucking Spencer, who’d tried to hit on him so many times Erica had threatened to break his jaw. He wonders how they haven’t recognized him. It’s not like he looks all that much different when he’s got a dick. “We’ve got some plans in motion. You guys were putting them at risk. But I swear, the minute we’re done, we’ll let you go.”

Stiles thinks that Spencer, at least, really believes that. He also thinks that whoever’s planning this sick revenge get up, or whatever it is, won’t be that stupid. If they don’t escape, him and Derek are going to die. If it was him, Stiles thinks, he’d set light to the building with them inside and claim it was an accident. He feels sick and tells himself again that they _will_ escape.

“How’s your arm?” mousy asks, reaching for the wound. His wrist is so close, and Stiles is so hungry.

“Nice touch with the wolfsbane,” Derek says suddenly. “Impressive.”

Stiles can see his face now, not just his eyes, in the light from the open door, and he’s looking a warning. Like he wouldn’t blame Stiles for biting, but he thinks Stiles is bright enough not to do it.

Stiles swallows down the wave of hunger and bloodlust and says, “Sore.”

Mousy examines his arm, and Stiles plays up his pain reactions, wincing and oohing.

“Thank goodness,” mousy says, sounding genuinely relieved. “I thought it was going to be bad. Looks like we only winged you.”

He pulls something from his pocket, one of those long rolls of sticky bandage, like a giant Band-Aid, and cuts a strip from it with scissors, carefully fastening it over the wound.

“We can’t really give you painkillers,” he says, as he smoothes it into place, “But let us know if it gets infected or anything, yeah?”

Stiles just nods, knowing that if he opens his mouth, what will come out will be pure rage. They left them alone for hours, Stiles had to perform surgery on himself, they’ve filled the room with wolfsbane to stop Derek healing, and they’re trying to pretend they care.

Derek’s wounds are being similarly cared for, Spencer making a noise like he’d going to vomit as he carefully applies bandages to Derek’s shoulder, covering the entrance and exit wounds.

“Sorry about the dark,” mousy says. “There’s no electricity down here. We’ll try and find a battery powered torch or something.”

Spencer takes one of the cups of water, plastic, Stiles notes, so he can’t break them and use them as a weapon, and puts a straw in it, offering it to Derek. For a moment, Stiles thinks the werewolf is going to refuse, but Derek merely scowls as he drinks. Stiles wonders if Derek, like him, is already planning how he’s going to kill these two when they get free.

“There’s some food there for you,” mousy says. He can’t seem to stop talking. Nerves, Stiles supposes. He’d probably never kidnapped anyone before. “We’ll come back for the tray later. I hope it’s okay.”

Derek is being fed a sandwich now, and his eyes are burning with rage at the indignity of it. He eats thought, because Derek is practical like that.

Spencer and mousy retreat, leaving the tray of food close enough that Stiles can reach it with his free hand. The door at the top of the steps bangs closed behind them, leaving them in darkness again.

Derek’s eyes, which had gone human when their kidnappers where in the room, begin to glow again.

“Well done not eating that guy,” Derek says, and against all the odds his voice is soft with amusement. “You must be starving.”

“Don’t remind me,” Stiles groans, his head falling back against the wall. “It’s been so fucking long since I last fed.”

“When?” Derek asks, and Stiles knows this is Derek trying to make small talk, fill the yawning silence, so he talks, even though it makes the hunger harder to ignore.

“Wednesday. Scott fed me for the first time. So fucking awkward, you would not believe.”

Derek makes a soft amused noise.

“Although,” Stiles adds, “It did answer my questions about whether all werewolves are masochists. Thank fuck they’re not. I love that guy, I really fucking do, but I could not deal with getting him off. That would be way way too weird, even for my life.” He groans because he can’t help but remember the flavor, the warm rush of blood filling his mouth. “I’m really beginning to wish I’d bitten Erica at the party.”

He’s so hungry, and whatever the hell’s in the sandwich (he’s guessing some kind of vegetarian ham substitute) it’s definitely not raw steak.

“What’s…” Derek begins, then stops, discomfort obvious in his voice. After a moment he tries again, choosing embarrassment over the awkward silence. “What’s going on with you and Erica?”

“Why do people keep asking me that?” Stiles exclaims, throwing up his free hand in despair. “Nothing. Nothing’s going on with me and Erica, or me and Isaac, or even and Erica and Isaac, okay? Fucking nothing.”

“She came back to the warehouse after you met at that club,” Derek says, and he sounds half upset, half annoyed. “She smelled…”

Stiles can guess. “I was hungry, she fed me,” he says. “Like you told her too. And yeah, she liked it. You’re really not in a position to judge about that dude. Anything else you smelled was all Isaac. I didn’t touch her. Or him.”

Not true, their dancing had mostly been grinding and had involved a whole lot of touching, but Stiles’ point is that it was touching without intent.

Derek growls, but doesn’t speak.

Stiles sighs in exasperation. “I can’t believe we’re actually doing this, but hey, we’ve been kidnapped and imprisoned and we’re probably going to die and the pack are probably going to die so why the fuck not. It’s not like things can get any worse.

“You like it when I drink your blood. Nothing to be ashamed of, and it seems to be a pretty common reaction among werewolves. I like drinking blood. Nothing I can do about that. I’m a fucking Peuchen now, it comes with the territory. And I need blood to survive. So unless you’re volunteering to feed me all the time, you’ve got to stop getting all pissy with me every time I get off on drinking from someone else, okay?”

There’s a long silence and then Derek says, so quietly Stiles almost misses it, “I am. Volunteering.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Have some angst. This is what writing through a panic attack gets you, lolol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not beta'd or yank-picked or anything, but it will be later, promise. I just wanted to get it up

Stiles slams his head back against the wall, barely feeling the pain, and says, voice hard, “We are getting the fuck out of here as soon as possible. It is so fucking unfair that you said that when I’ve got no way of biting you.” He points an accusing finger in Derek’s general direction, eyes still close, and growls out, “You, Derek Hale, are a fucking tease.”

The noise Derek makes is disturbingly close to an actual laugh.

After a moment Stiles says, “If we’re exclusive now, does that mean we can stop being embarrassed and awkward about how much we both get off on the feeding?”

“I was never embarrassed by it,” Derek says, but he sounds fond. Stiles is starting to wonder if this is some kind of hunger induced hallucination, because nothing in his life is ever this easy. “I am comfortable with my desires.”

There’s a note of ironic humor to his voice, and Stiles pictures him, younger and happier, laughing as he says the same thing to his teasing older sister. Stiles smiles at the image and tells the desire and bloodlust to fuck off, because yes he can smell Derek’s blood, even over the scent of the wolfsbane, but it’s all the way over there and he’s fucking chained up.

“We really really need to get out of here,” he groans. “Seriously, I would be willing to cut my own fucking arm off to get out of here, if I had a saw.”

There’s silence as they both try to think of ways to escape. At last Derek says, “You can control humans.”

Stiles had forgotten about that. He’s only managed to use the power once, and that was for something small.

“I don’t know if I could do something big with it,” he says. “Besides which, it won’t work if there’s two of them. I’ll get control of one, and the other will shoot me.”

“So we get just one of them down here.”

“How are you planning on doing that?” Stiles asks. “These guys are mental, but they’re not stupid.”

“They’re following orders,” Derek says. “But give them an emergency…”

Stiles grins. “What are you thinking?”

**oOOOo**

Spencer tumbles down the stairs, pulling on his balaclava as he does.

“What’s happening?” he asks, taking in the scene. Stiles is slumped forward, handcuffed wrist twisted awkwardly behind him. He’s breathing fast and shaking visibly.

“He has panic attacks,” Derek says. “Help him, please!” He sounds genuinely distressed, which would be a warning to anyone who knew him that this is a trap.

Spencer reaches out for Stiles, crouching in front of him. Stiles’ head snaps up, looking Spencer straight in the eyes, and he says, “Unchain me. Now.”

Across the room, Derek feels the pull of the order, the power in Stiles’ voice, and smiles. He knew he could do it.

Spencer pulls a small key from his pocket, and with trembling fingers inserts it into the lock of the handcuffs. He’s reaching around Stiles to do it, his arm brushing Stiles’ cheek, and Stiles is so hungry and so cold, he can’t resist any longer.

This isn’t a friend, not someone helping him out, this is someone who kidnapped and imprisoned and shot him, so Stiles doesn’t stop when the first rush of hot blood fills his mouth. He keeps biting, feels his teeth scrape bone and is vaguely aware of screaming when he pulls away, a lump of butter soft flesh in his mouth.

The muscle is juicy, marbled with creamy fat, and it’s the most delicious thing Stiles has ever tasted. He closes his eyes as he swallows, moaning at the taste.

When he opens them again, he and Derek are alone, a trail of blood splatters marking where Spencer had run from the room.

“He’ll get the others,” Derek says. “We need to hurry.”

Stiles unfastens the handcuffs with shaking fingers. It takes him two goes to stand, cold turning his legs to ice, lack of medication and the sweet flavor of Spencer’s flesh making him vibrate with energy.

When he gets close, he sees that Derek is fastened not with chains, but with ropes, woven through with sprigs of wolfsbane.

He tugs the knots open, catching Derek when he stumbles forward into Stiles’ arms.

There’s a long moment when they stand frozen, Derek’s throat so close to Stiles’ mouth that he can see the pulse jumping beneath his skin. It takes every ounce of his self-control to pull back, and his voice is strained when he says, “later. Fucking promise me Derek, later.”

“As soon as we’re free and the pack is safe,” Derek agrees. His eyes glow in the darkness as he says, “Now let’s go kill those bastards.”

**oOOOo**

The house is empty. Stiles isn’t paranoid, he’s sure he’s not, but he thinks that’s probably a bad sign. Derek tells him to stop thinking so much.

Derek holds his hand painfully tightly, the bones grinding together, as they move as swiftly and silently as they can through the house. It’s strangely comforting. Stiles is pretty damn proud of the fact that he makes it all the way to the street before he breaks down.

For once Stiles doesn’t fight the wave of panic that washes over him. Fighting it won’t stop it, he knows that from nearly a decade of experience, and for once he feels he’s entirely justified in having a minor break-down.

His mouth is full of the thick taste of adrenaline, and all he can hear for long minutes is the blood pounding in his ears. He sinks to the ground, wraps his arms around his torso, and focusses on breathing.

When he gets himself under control, he realizes he’s drawn a small crowd, kids on their way home from school (how long had they been in there?) gathered round them, staring. Stiles doesn’t blame them. It’s not often you see a teenage boy sitting in the street in girl’s clothes having a panic attack, even in Beacon Hills. Derek is standing over him, alternating giving him concerned glances and turning the full force of his glare on their audience.

“You done?” he asks, holding out a hand to help Stiles up. His tone is brusque, but not unfeeling. “We need to get going. The pack…” He doesn’t say more. He doesn’t need too.

Struggling with legs that feel like jelly, Stiles lets Derek pull him to his feet, and steadies himself against the firm strength of the werewolf’s body.

The moment he puts his weight back on his own feet, instead of resting it all against Derek, Derek moves, grabbing his hand again to drag him along. Stiles would feel offended, but Derek’s an Alpha and his pack could be danger. Stiles understands his urgency.

“Sorry about that,” he says, has he lets himself be tugged along. “It’s been a while since I took my pills I think. Everything feels kinda floaty. And really really shit. Like my brain is filled with evil balloons. Plus I’ve been kidnapped, which is kinda new for me. And I tried to eat someone, not that that really matters because I’m still fucking starving.”

Derek hmmms, like he understands that Stiles needs to chatter, needs to fill up the empty space, in order to feel normal again. He doesn’t say anything back, but Stiles doesn’t mind. He’s happy to do the talking for both of them.

Stiles’ Jeep is where he left it, parked a couple of streets away from the evil lair. He’s always loved it, but he’s never been so happy to see it as he is now.

Derek shoves him towards the passenger side, and he goes, knowing that he’s still too shaky to drive safely. Not that he thinks Derek will be any better, but at least if they get pulled over it will be Derek who loses his license, not Stiles.

“When this is over,” Derek says suddenly, “you’re drinking as much blood as I can spare, and then I’m taking you to the hospital.”

Stiles wants to protest, wants to say that he’s fine (even though he really really isn’t) but he recognizes the tone of Derek’s voice. It’s the one his dad uses when he’s gone that one step too far, pushed too many boundaries and broken too many rules for even the Sherriff to ignore.

“Once it’s over,” he agrees instead. “And once you’ve fucking fed me, Jesus I’m starving.”

Derek snorts with something like laughter, except there’s no amusement on his face, and grips the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turn white.

Stiles considered the risks for a moment, and then lays a tentative hand on Derek’s arm. “They’ll be okay,” he says, hoping he sounds more sure than he feels. “Your pack will be okay.”

The smile Derek gives him is small and sad and tightly controlled, one that says Derek is no stranger to this kind of pain and worry and uncertainty, that he knows all too well what it is to get back just too late, and Stiles’ heart breaks a little bit.

“They’ll be okay,” he repeats, because they have to be. Because if they’re not, he will personally murder every Argent and every one of these idiots who thought it was okay to drag the pack into their stupid fight.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is short and entirely unexpected. Seriously, I didn't know any of this stuff was going to happen. I didn't even know Lydia was going to be in the fic again. Apparently she is.
> 
> I have no idea whatsoever where this is going. I thought I knew, turns out, I was wrong.
> 
> As before, unbeta'd and un-yank-picked, but it will get corrected soon, I promise x

Scott isn’t answering his phone. When this is all over (if they get out of this alive, a dark part of her adds) she’s going to kick him in the balls as hard as she can for that because she’s about thirty seconds away from a full on panic attack.

“Please dad,” Allison says, clutching at his arm to make him turn and actually fucking look at her, see how scared she is. “Please don’t let him do this!”

Her dad shakes his head, and she wants to scream at the pity she sees in his eyes. He’s not going to help, she realizes with a terrible lurch in her gut. He can’t help. He’s her daddy, strong and kind and always there for her, and he’s completely powerless and he’s going to stand by and do nothing while Gerard murders Scott.

She flings herself away from him, spits “Coward” into his face and takes off, pulling her phone from her pocket as she scrambles up the stairs.

Lydia, bless her soul, answers on the first ring.

“Gerard’s going to kill Scott,” Allison says, her mind racing too fast for explanations. All she knows, all she can think about, is that it’s happening, happening now, and it mustn’t and she needs Lydia’s cool intellect on her side.

“The headmaster?” Lydia sounds surprised. “I know his grades were dropping but I didn’t know they were that bad.”

Just like that, Allison can breathe again. She makes a totally undignified little half laugh half choking noise and says, as calmly as she can manage, “I don’t have time to explain everything right now. I’m sorry. But I know you know bits of it, at least. You didn’t bat an eyelid when you saw Stiles transform.

“Scott’s a werewolf. And Isaac and Erica and the rest of them. My family hunt werewolves, have done for generations, and yeah we’re like Romeo and Juliette but with more howling at the moon. But I love him, I really fucking love him, even if he is a hairy idiot. And now my mental fucking granddad is going to kill him, kill all of them, because he thinks they’ve attacked him, only they haven’t, someone else has, but that doesn’t matter and Derek and Stiles are missing, which is really fucking bad because Stiles is kinda the brains of this operation and Derek’s in charge and my dad’s just standing there saying how sorry he is and not fucking doing anything and I really really need your help. Okay?”

There’s a moment’s silence while her friend processes her rushed explanation, and then Lydia says, completely calmly, “Okay. Bring what you think you might need and meet me at my place as soon as you can.”

Allison takes a deep breath, thinks she should probably say thank you, but if she speaks she’s going to start crying. Then Lydia says, her voice unusually soft, “They’ll be okay. We’ll save them.” The last of Allison’s control crumbles and she snaps her phone shut without saying goodbye, to stop Lydia from hearing her cry.

**oOOOo**

Lydia paces her room, needing some outlet for her nervous energy now she’s finished preparing. She’s changed into her most practical clothes, the jeans she only wears when it’s freezing outside and the Doc Martens she would deny on pain of death that she owns. And loves. She’s done a cursory Google search for werewolves, but given that up when she realized she’d got no way of verifying anything she found.

She’s known there was something going on, has suffered through Jackson’s rants about steroids and dealers and cheating, has watched as one by one her dorky, awkward classmates changed, got healthier, stronger, faster. She’s seen Stiles change before her very eyes, going from male to female as though it were the easiest thing in the world and bitten her cheek till he bled to stop herself from asking about it. Everyone has their secrets.

Hers is that she’s going mad. Compared to that, she feels, just being a werewolf really isn’t all that dramatic.

Maybe, she thinks, and she hates herself for how needy she sounds, even in her own mind, maybe now she knows about them she’ll be able to tell them about her. Maybe she won’t be alone any more.

She hears feet on the stairs, two sets, and that irritating clucking noise her mom makes when she’s cross, and she can see in her minds eyes exactly what’s happening, Allison pushing past her mom on the stairs, too frantic with worry about Scott to care that she’s being rude.

The door sticks and Allison swears under her breath as she pushes it open, then stands there in the doorway, dressed all in black, jeans and hoodie and combat boots, compound bow in one hand, a small crossbow in the other.

“Please tell me you have a plan,” she says, and there’s a vulnerability in her voice that she’s managing to keep from her face.

“Not yet,” Lydia tells her and rubs a thumb over the scars on her knuckles to remind herself that this is real and she needs all her focus. “But I will have.”

**oOOOo**

Allison gestures at her, and Lydia attempts to convey, purely through a scowl, that she might be a certified genius, but she doesn’t know all that military stuff Allison does (which suddenly makes so much more sense).

Allison sighs dramatically and does her best to sign at her, her ASL good but made somewhat hard to understand by the fact that she won’t put down her crossbow, that she can see one of the bad guys.

“Shoot him?” Lydia signs back, thinking, not for the first time, how fucking useful it is to have a deaf cousin.

Allison carefully spells out ‘tranquilizers’ and Lydia thinks somewhat hysterically that the girl really should have prepared better and learn the sign for that.

“Smart, isn’t she?” a cold voice says beside her. “Quite the little Rambo.”

Lydia presses her hand against the scars on her knuckles, tells herself fiercely that he’s dead. When she opens her eyes, there’s no one behind her.

She wishes, not for the first time, that she wasn’t fucking crazy, because she’s sure, so fucking sure, that there are nine people in the warehouse, one of whom is old and full of hate, four of whom are scared out of their minds.

Gerard, she thinks, and Scott and Erica and Isaac and Boyd. Maybe she isn’t…

She waits till Allison looks back her way, and then gestures her to come back. Allison does, moving in a low crouching run, bow clutched tight against her body.

“I need to tell you something,” Lydia hisses, signing along with her words out of habit. “I thought for ages I was going mad. I still do. I hallucinate. But I think now, maybe… maybe I’m psychic or something.”

Allison looks like she thinks they don’t have time for this, so Lydia hurries on. “If I’m right, if I’m not just crazy, then Scott is in the warehouse, and he’s alive. So are the other… werewolves. Apart from Derek and Stiles.” She’d recognize Stiles’ mind anywhere, his thoughts are as hyperactive as their owner. “Gerard’s there too. I think it’s him. I don’t know him well enough to be sure, but there’s someone old and… well, nasty. There’s four more, people I don’t know, they’re indistinct, but I assume they’re with Gerard. Hunters.”

To her relief, Allison doesn’t laugh at her, or tell her to shut up. She looks confused but trusting and whispers, “If you’re right, that’s amazing.” And after a second she adds, “And if you’re wrong and it turns out you are crazy after all, we’ll fix it, I swear.”

Lydia hadn’t known, before she met Allison, how alone she’d always been.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not happy with this chapter, but it wasn't getting improved by me staring balefully at it, so I'm just going to go ahead and post it
> 
> Only one more chapter to go now, plus generally tidying things up a bit
> 
> Not Beta'd or yank-picked so feel free to let me know of any connections I need to make

“March in there and kill them all?” Stiles demands, his voice going high with disbelief. “That’s seriously your plan?”

“They’ve got my Betas,” Derek says, as though this somehow excuses his utter idiocy.

“They’re heavily armed Werewolf hunters, and you’re one werewolf,” Stiles says, though he knows it’s a lost cause.

“They’ve got my Betas,” Derek says again, getting out of the car. Stiles sighs, but follows.

Taking on the Argents is a stupid idea, and it’s going to hurt. A lot. But he’d known it was an inevitability ever since they’d seen the vans parked outside the were-house. Derek might be a bit of a shit Alpha, but he’s protective of his pack. With good reason, Stiles thinks, considering what happened to the last one he had. He speeds up a little, following Derek towards the looming shape of the were-house.

**oOOOo**

Lydia winces as Allison’s foot goes through the skylight, sure that the noise will bring people running.

Allison drops through the hole, her landing almost silent, and does a quick scan of their surroundings before she gestures for Lydia to follow. Lydia closes her eyes, checks one last time that the hunters haven’t noticed them (she can feel the spikes of interest in the minds of the werewolves, but the humans are still indistinct blurs characterized by hate and adrenaline) and follows her. She lands awkwardly, her boots thumping against the moldy carpet, and Allison has to steady her to stop her from tumbling over.

“They heard us,” Lydia whispers, because she’s sure now that this is real. Compared to werewolves, her being psychic isn’t that weird. When Allison looks panicked she says, “Not the hunters, Scott and the others. I don’t know if they know it’s us, I can’t read details like that, but I know they heard the noise.”

Allison nods, then puts a finger to her lips and tiptoes toward the door, arrow already notched against the string of her bow.

Lydia follows her, doing her best not to trip over. It’s easier to concentrate on the minds of the people below when she isn’t being distracted by visual information, but the floor is uneven with age and neglect and she doesn’t dare close her eyes for a second. If she falls, the hunters will find them for sure.

Allison glances back at her as she reaches the door, obviously asking if the coast is clear. Lydia feels a huge lump of emotion welling up in her chest. Allison believes her. Allison trusts her.

She nods that the coast is clear, and gives the finger to the figure behind her who says, “You’re still mad you know. Just because your little friend pretends to believe you, doesn’t change the facts.”

The door squeaks alarmingly as Allison eases it open. Lydia shuts her eyes for a moment, but none of the humans have heard, she’s sure.

Opening her eyes, she follows Allison through the door and crouches at the top of the stairs, taking in the scene bellow her.

The headmaster is standing in the middle of the room, Scott kneeling at his feet, pressing a gun to the werewolf’s head. The three other werewolves are standing behind him, Boyd holding Erica, presumably to stop her from doing anything stupid. The hunters are arrayed around the room, watching the scene with casual interest, weapons ready.

Allison makes a tiny noise of distress, but Lydia stops her from moving. She’s felt something, a buzzing itching ball of energy, far away but getting rapidly closer.

“Stiles,” she hisses to her friend. “Coming this way. And he’s not alone.”

She presumes the mind filled with rage accompanying Stiles is Derek, but she doesn’t know him well enough to be sure.

Allison looks like she’s going to ask if she’s sure, but then a terrifying sound rattles through the building, rattling the walls and chilling Lydia’s heart.

“Alpha,” Allison mouths. “Derek’s not happy.”

Lydia nods, because never mind the howl, she can feel the rage in Derek’s mind and in Stiles’ (although in his case it’s also mixed with panic, and a good dose of amusement, because Stiles takes nothing seriously, especially not angry Alpha werewolves, apparently).

The girls hang back, keeping out of sight, and listen in amazement to the screams and yells coming from outside. Apparently an angry Alpha werewolf is even more dangerous than Lydia would have imagined. Gerard’s men are heavily armed and, she assumes, highly trained, but they’re not making a dent in the two outside.

There’s a metallic banging which echoes through the whole building, and the door flies open to reveal Derek, eyes glowing red and splattered with blood, most of it not his own. Behind him Stiles is frowning, and licking his hands clean.

“Finally!” Gerard crows and Lydia shivers at the loathing she can hear in his tone. “I’ve been waiting for you. I knew you’d come to save the puppies. Such a good dog. You can’t save them all though.”

She can see the intent in his mind, the cold slick certainty of death, and the feeling makes her want to retch. She fights down her nausea though, shouts to Allison, louder than she needs, panic is making her stupid, “He’s going to shoot Scott.”

All heads in the room snap to stare at them. Allison brings up her bow in a smooth motion, arrow still notched, and releases it into Gerard’s shoulder. He screams, a noise more of rage than pain, and crumples, the gun falling from his hand as he falls.

There’s a few minutes then of terrible confusion, as the pack take down the hunters. Several get shots off, and Lydia screams with sympathetic pain when one grazes Boyd’s abdomen, leaving a streak of red behind it. The hunters are outnumbered now though, and they’re afraid, terror and disgust filling their minds as the werewolves take them down, knocking them unconscious.

Lydia feels pathetic, leaning on Allison’s shoulder as they make their way down the rickety staircase, her legs unable to hold her. She feels a little better when she sees that Stiles, splattered in other people’s blood, is shaking and Erica and Isaac are crouched on the floor, arms wrapped tightly around one another.

“You shot Gerard,” Derek says to Allison, scowling. Lydia can’t tell if he’s angry with them. His mind is hard to read, he’s a virtual stranger to her, and what she can see is all anger, not directed anywhere or at anyone in particular, just a mass of impotent rage. It’s uncomfortable.

“Tranq arrow,” Allison says matter of factly. “I don’t like the man, but I’m hardly going to kill him.”

Derek nods, accepting, and goes to retrieve a coil of chain from one of the abandoned subway cars that stand against one wall. He tosses it to Scott and says, “Secure him.”

Stiles comes to stand beside Lydia, reaching out like he wants to hug her but doesn’t know if he’s allowed.

“You knew what he was going to do,” he says instead, shoving blood-stained hands into his pockets.

“I think I might be a bit psychic,” she says, and then snarls, “Shut up!” when she hears sniggers beside her.

“Ummm,” Stiles says.

“Also mad,” Lydia adds, because she might have always avoided Stiles – his ADHD itches against her mind – but she knows he’s trustworthy. “I talk to people who aren’t there sometimes.” There’s more to it than that, a lot more, but that will do for now.

Stiles rubs the back of his neck uncomfortably and says, “I tried to eat someone earlier. And Allison just shot her own Grandfather.”

Lydia nods, because she understands what he’s saying. They’re all a little mad here.

“Is it over do you think?” Stiles asks, looking round the room at the unconscious hunters.

Derek studies his pack, the Betas who he would die to protect, despite their lack of affection and respect for him, the Peuchen he’s coming to rely on more and more, the humans who came to help despite the danger. They’re all shaken, bruised and bloody, but none of them are seriously hurt. He feels the tension that he’s been holding in for the last few days gradually begin to seep out. His pack are safe. It hasn’t happened again.

“Um… not quite,” the redheaded girl with the Argent pup says, pointing at something over his shoulder. He spins to see one of the hunters, a young man with blond curls that remind him of Isaac, creeping toward them.

“He’s planning on killing Gerard,” the redhead says, her voice full of calm certainty. Derek believes her. He’s met one or two psychics before, knows what their powers can do. This girl is scared and untrained and, by her own admission, half mad, but she’s still a psychic.

Boyd glances to him for confirmation, then fells the hunter with a hard blow. Derek pretends he doesn’t hear bone crack under his Beta’s fist. It won’t be enough to kill the man, give him concussion at most, and he deserves that.

“Is no one else wondering why a hunter was going to kill Gerard?” Stiles asks mildly, kicking his recumbent headmaster. He might not consider himself pack yet, but he’s nearly as protective of the younger werewolves as Derek is.

Derek looks at the redhead, who blushes but stands up a little straighter, tossing her hair. “He hated Gerard,” she says. “I didn’t really get a chance to see much more.”

“Maybe he was the one attacking the Argents?” Isaac says hopefully.

Derek picks up movement outside and turns toward the door. As he does he sees Stiles pull a face.

“I think we’re about to the meet the people behind the attacks,” Stiles says.

The door was half open, the lock smashed when Derek forced it, and now it opens all the way, to reveal a small blond girl, a pistol looking out of place in her delicate hands, followed by six others, all of them armed.

“Joe!” Stiles exclaims. “I fucking knew it!”

“You know, attacking Spencer was unnecessary,” the girl says, in a cheerful tone that reminds Derek horribly of Peter. “We would have let you out once Gerard was dead.”

Derek half expects Stiles to yell – he isn’t great at controlling his temper – but instead he just shrugs. “Way I see it, people who shoot Peuchen should expect to get eaten,” he says, his voice hard. Derek can hear his heart pounding, belying his apparent calm.

“I think this is the part where you tell us all about your plans,” Erica says. Derek feels a rush of pride when he hears how calm she sounds.

“No,” the girl called Joe says, and ostentatiously cocks her gun. “This is the part where you hand over Gerard.”

For one wild moment Derek considers it. It would solve a lot of problems. But when it comes right down to it, he isn’t a killer, and he isn’t about to hand someone over to executed, however much he deserves it.

Erica growls low in her throat, and Isaac says, “If anyone gets to kill the old bastard, we do.”

Allison makes a small noise of distress, and Scott says, “No one’s killing anyone. Seriously guys, this is mental.”

“What did Gerard even do to you lot?” Stiles demands. “You’re all human.”

“I’m human,” Joe agrees. “But my boyfriend wasn’t. Or Spencer’s brother. Or Eileen’s daughter. Or David’s best friend. Or Lyndsey’s mother. Or any of the hundreds of other people that man has killed just for being different.”

“And because of that, you tried to kill Allison?” Stiles demands. “And Chris? What did they ever do to you?”

Joe looks surprised and says, “Who?” while a voice from the back of the group says, “They’re hunters. They’re every bit as bad as him.”

Erica shakes off the hold Isaac has on her hand and stalks forward, hissing angrily, “You didn’t like his indiscriminate killing so you decided to fix it by indiscriminately killing?” She’s fully shifted now, eyes glowing golden as she points a clawed finger at the smaller blonde. “That’s so fucking stupid, I don’t…”

Derek watches the scene as if in slow-mo. As Erica’s hand touches Joe’s jacket, the room reverberates with the ring of a pistol shot and Erica falls back, her hands dropping to cover the spreading red stain on her stomach.

There’s a yell, filled with rage and pain, and Stiles launches himself at the girl, knocking her to the floor and landing on top of her.

The Betas look to Derek, who shakes his head. He has no idea what to do. It’s only when he realizes the other attackers are still holding weapons that he finds his voice.

With a growl, he reaches for the nearest human, jerking his gun from his grip fast enough that he hears the bones of his wrist crack. “Don’t bite them,” he warns as Isaac and Boyd wade into the fight, speed and rage making up for their lack of technique.

Their attackers are humans, scared and unsure, and faced with angry werewolves they crumble, dropping their guns and running for the door, abandoning their leader and their wounded. Derek snarls. Humans disgust him sometimes. He turns his attention back to Stiles, still straddling the prone form of the human’s leader.

“I’m seriously fucking starving,” Stiles is growling, his knees pinning the girl’s wrists in a way that has to be agony. “And you’ve attacked far too many of my friends for me to care if you die, so if you don’t start talking, I’m going to tear the muscles off your bones with my teeth. Understand?”

The girl goes still, and Derek can smell the fear coming off her. Maybe she isn’t as fucking stupid as he’d thought.

“This was _your_ plan?” Derek demands, his voice more a growl than human, but he doesn’t care. This stupid, petty little human had hurt his pack. He certainly wouldn’t mourn if Stiles did eat her.

“It was… kinda all of us. But mostly me. And David.” Her eyes flick to the prone form of the Argent double-agent.

“And you didn’t think at all that innocent people would get caught up in this?” Allison demands. “You didn’t think that Gerard would take it out on the local pack?”

“It was a risk worth taking,” Joe snarls, “To take down a monster like Gerard. There’s always collateral damage.”

“My pack,” Derek snarls, furious that this stupid human could count the lives of his Betas so cheaply. “My cubs.”

Stiles stands, letting the girl scrabble to her feet. “You’re as bad as Gerard ever was,” he spits. “Get the fuck out of here and never come back.”

Derek wants to protest, wants the person responsible for his pack’s suffering to be punished, but he knows Stiles was right. They can’t kill the girl.

“You’d better start running,” the Argent cub says, her voice pure ice. “The entire Argent clan will know about this in a few minutes. And they will never stop hunting you.”

Derek feels something tight unravel in his chest as the small figure runs for the door. She won’t go unpunished. He can leave it to the hunters to punish her for her crimes, while he worries about his pack.

Erica is sitting up, Isaac’s hands steadying her, while Boyd inspects the wound in her stomach. She sees him looking and smiles a small pained smile. “It’s healing,” she says. “Just an ordinary bullet.”

“This is seriously fucked-up,” the redhead says, looking around at them. “I can’t believe none of us are hurt!”

“I’m still hungry,” Stiles says, looking more like his usual light-hearted self. “Does that count?"


	20. Chapter 20

“Let me see,” Derek says, kneeling beside Erica and pulling her top away to see the skin underneath. He nods, apparently satisfied that it’s healing, and stands up.

“Those of you with homes, go home,” he says firmly. “You should be with your families right now. Erica, can Isaac go home with you?”

Erica nods.

“In that case, scram. Not you Stiles,” he adds, when Stiles begins to move towards the door.

Erica’s limping, her shirt soaked in blood, but she still manages to give Stiles an absolutely filthy smirk. Stiles doesn’t flip her off, but only because he’s too busy grinning like a lunatic.

Derek guides him to the bench that stands against one wall, and they sit, both trying not to look at the other.

The stolen park bench isn’t the comfiest thing Stiles has ever sat on. He kinda really wants to just climb into Derek’s lap for this, but he thinks that might be kinda forward of him.

“So, um, how do you want to do this?” Stiles asks, hoping he doesn’t sound as nervous as he feels. He’s fed from Derek before, but that conversation while they were locked in the cellar changes things.

“I didn’t… I mean this isn’t…” Derek sighs and looks away. “I really hate having to talk things through. Look, you know, or you’ve guessed, what happened with Kate, the basics at least.”

Stiles nods.

“So you’ll understand then, I hope, why I have some… issues. About sex, and about pain, and about a lot of stuff.”

Stiles nods again, and keeps his expression carefully blank. Derek wouldn’t want his sympathy, and he’s sure as hell not going to let Derek see how disappointed he is. Because he hadn’t actually got as far as thinking about sex with Derek, but now he think’s being told that’s not an option, and he’s wondering why the hell he didn’t fantasize about it while he still had hope. He just knows he’s going to feel weird and creepy jerking off to Derek now.

“Well I don’t think either of us is into hardcore BDSM or rape-roleplay,” Stiles jokes, “So how about we try stuff and you tell me whether you like it or not. And vice versa. Though in my case the problem is probably going to be wanting more rather than less. What with the whole wanting to eat you thing.”

“You want to eat me?” Derek asks, a strange expression on his face.

“Yes. No. Well, I mean I don’t want to damage you, you know? You’re… maybe not a friend, but you’ve saved my life a few times and you’re letting me drink your blood, but well… I’m a Peuchen. And you smell amazing. And your blood tastes amazing. So yeah, I maybe want to tear the living flesh from your bones with my teeth and… mpff!”

Derek cuts Stiles off with a kiss, quick and hard.

When he pulls back, blushing slightly (and Derek Hale blushing is kinda a mind-fuck) Stiles asks, “Did you just kiss me _because_ I said I wanted to eat you?”

“Issues,” Derek stresses, ducking his head. “I warned you about the issues.”

He sounds like he thinks Stiles will be angry or disgusted or something, which, no. No way. “Feature not a bug, dude,” Stiles says, taking his hand. “Also, since you’ve kissed me, does that mean I can sit on your lap?”

Derek looks a little spooked, and Stiles adds quickly, “It’s totally fine if not. I just… kinda really want to.”

Derek smiles at him, a proper wide happy smile of the kind he’s never seen on his face before, and pulls Stiles too him. Stiles takes the hint and scrambles across him, less than gracefully, so that he’s sitting facing Derek, straddling him. The back of the bench and the length of Stiles’ legs mean he has to lean forward a long way to kiss Derek, but he doesn’t care. This awkward closeness is so much better than sitting at opposite ends of the bench.

They kiss long and slow, and Stiles relaxes, because this at least he’s done before. Not a whole lot maybe, but at least he knows what he’s doing.

When the urge to bite down on Derek’s lips and tongue gets too strong he makes himself pull back. If this is going to be good for both of them (and he really wants it to be) then he needs to be clear about what he’s going to do, give Derek a chance to object. He hates to think he might ever be _that guy_ , but he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to stop once he starts.

He sits up, arching his back just a little, because, yeah, Erica was totally spot on with the whole exhibitionism thing, Derek’s eyes on him feel amazing, and says, “I’m going to bite you now. Right here.” He taps a finger against the point where Derek’s shoulder becomes his neck, and adds, “If you’ve got a problem with that, tell me now.”

Derek shakes his head. “No problem.”

Stiles would like to think that he doesn’t do anything as undignified as launch himself at Derek, but in truth he knows that’s exactly what he does. He’s hungry and horny and Derek is right there, smiling slightly and smelling delicious.

It’s harder, now he knows what it feels like to keep going, to stop himself from biting too hard, but the first rush of blood into his mouth, exploding on his taste buds, distracts him from the desire to rip and tear and kill.

He notices the smell of arousal sooner this time, and feels it in the way Derek shudders when Stiles sucks at the wound. Stiles’ whole body is singing with the rush of the blood, hot and sweet and Derek in his mouth, and he has a sudden thought that he really hopes Derek’s issues don’t extend to blowjobs, because next time, Stiles wants to hold him down and drink from the meat of his thigh before he sucks him off the with the taste of his blood still in his mouth. This time, there’s no way he’s going to last long enough.

He pulls back from the wound, lapping at the skin and grinning as Derek shudders beneath him.

“How do you and your issues feel about a handjob?” Stiles asks. “You’re totally free to say no of course, but if you’re anything like as turned on as I am…”

Derek smiles again, that open happy smile that Stiles think he’ll never get enough of, and says, “Me and my issues would really like it if you’d stop talking and get your hand on my cock.”

Stiles ducks to catch his mouth in a desperate blood-tainted kiss, his hands scrabbling at Derek’s jeans (and damn it, why do people still have button flies in this day and age?). Eventually he gets them open enough that he can insinuate his hand between the fabric and Derek’s smooth skin. Derek tenses when Stiles slips his hand under the waistband of Derek’s shorts, but when Stiles stills, afraid that he’s overstepped some line, Derek shifts his hips upwards, trying to make Stiles move.

Stiles pulls him out of his jeans, gives him an experimental squeeze. Derek lets out a low groan, shifting like he wants to thrust into Stiles’ hand but can’t because of his weight pinning him. Stiles grins – he’d always pegged himself as vanilla, but having Derek desperate and at his mercy is doing all sorts of things for him.

He begins to jack Derek in earnest, his hand dry and hard against Derek’s flesh. Derek doesn’t mind, if the little gasping breathes he’s letting out are any indication. He’s more controlled than Stiles feels anyone has any right to be during sex, but he’s so much more open than Stiles has ever seen him, and it makes Stiles’ heart lurch in a way he ignores for now.

Derek opens his eyes and they’re red, glowing like hot coals. Stiles’ cock kicks with the extra rush of arousal the sight sends reeling through him, and leans in to kiss Derek, deep and rough.

Derek leans his head back, and Stiles is slightly offended until Derek groans out, “Bite me.”

Stiles is pretty sure he should ask if Derek’s sure, but he’s too far gone in lust to resist. He leans forward, arching his back so that the hard line of his cock rubs against Derek’s leg, and sinks his teeth into Derek’s neck, just above the last bite.

Derek’s hands come up to grip his shoulders, holding him close, as his mouth fills with blood. His hand is still moving on Derek’s cock, totally independently of his brain, and he’s shifting his hips desperately, trying to get the pressure he desperately needs.

Derek lets out a low noise, somewhere between a sob and a moan, and Stiles can feel him moving his hands, probably trying to keep from hurting Stiles as he loses control.

“You can’t hurt me,” Stiles says, pressing the words into Derek’s torn skin like a kiss. “I can heal it. It’s okay.”

He’s not a fan of pain, but he’s even less a fan of Derek having to worry about controlling himself when he should be concentrating on feeling good.

Derek gasps as he digs clawed fingers into Stiles’ shoulders, tearing eight small holes in his flesh.

Stiles inhales deeply, and grins at the mingling smells of his and Derek’s blood and arousal. He can feel the pain from his back clearly, but he’s aroused enough, buzzing with adrenaline and blood, that it just adds a delicious sharp edge to his pleasure.

He jacks Derek faster, running his tongue across the teeth marks set into Derek’s tanned skin.

Derek’s fingers tighten as he comes, tearing deep gashes into Stiles shoulders as he gasps and writhes.

The pain and the smell of Derek’s come releases something inside Stiles and he ruts shamelessly against Derek’s thigh, moaning a high, broken sound as he comes, the taste of blood still thick in his mouth.

**oOOOo**

Stiles kicks his heals grumpily against the edge of his hospital bed. He’d done his best to persuade Derek that he was clearly okay, but the Alpha wasn’t having any of it.

He’d given Mellissa McCall an abbreviated version of the truth, and sat quietly while the doctor checked him over and took blood samples. He feels fine, but if this will calm everyone else down, he’s happy to sit here being bored.

He’s less happy when the door to the room he’s in flies open to reveal his dad, looking like he’s about to have a heart-attack.

He crosses the room in two strides and gathers Stiles into a bone-crushing hug.

“What’s going on, Stiles,” he demands. “No lies this time. Mellissa called me to say you’d been admitted to hospital after being kidnapped, and on my way in a Doctor stopped me to say that he’d got the results of your blood-tests and they think you’re taking steroids! What the fuck is going on?”

For one disorientated moment, Stiles can only think that there’s some kind of plot to discredit him, and then he realizes. His hormone levels must be insane. If Peuchen can shift fully enough for someone female to father a child then there must be hormonal changes as well as cosmetic ones.

There’s no way of getting out of this, except telling the truth.

“Well dad,” he says, sitting up and trying to marshal his thoughts enough to explain, “There’s something I need to tell you…”

**Author's Note:**

> Find my multi-fandom fic recs [here](http://gluttonforpunsihment.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Be my friend [here](http://lentilswitheverything.tumblr.com/)


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